I'm very interested to see how this new painting will go - I know I want it big and stark, and as I said, I follow the muse, and that's when it always works perfectly for me.

I think to just single out a highlight of Elvis's career is pretty much impossible. As far as being a fan of his, a lifetime fan, there were just too many highlights.

There are some good songs, but not the kind of song-writing that I remember, that I like. Springsteen still does it. Paul Simon, and there are also good writers, but that doesn't dominate the charts.

Well, as an artist, I think that Elvis's generosity to me he always talked very highly about me, he always spoke very highly about my work and singing and my writing.

There was a lot of great writing couples, but I try to do it all myself. And it was practically impossible, but I still managed to be ahead of my time.

And unless you have that sense of being creative, people think you're just working all the time.

I went to art school, I think it helped me a great deal because it taught me who I am.

Ignorance is kind of bliss.

Elvis was, at least the times I was around him, Elvis was a practical joker. He was always, had some little mischievous something going.

When I used to go to Elvis's house was always a nightmare trying to get into the house because of so many fans outside the gate and he really couldn't go anywhere without sneaking in or doing something because people just wanted to be around him and to be with him.

And I just remember, you know, breaking into tears and feeling so empty because, as long as Elvis was in the world, you always knew something was going and he always had something that kept everybody mesmerized.

I mean, I can sit down with a guitar, and in fact, we do two, three songs with just guitar and percussion.

I'm very interested to see how this new painting will go - I know I want it big and stark, and as I said, I follow the muse, and that's when it always works perfectly for me.

I always went with my agenda, I just couldn't execute it.

I think, describing Elvis for me would be a very generous king. He was the king of rock and roll, will always be. He's whats made it possible for everyone to be performers and to do the things they do now.

I think Ingmar Bergman, Francoise Truffaut - all these people created images in my mind, beautiful pictures, I loved what was known at that time as the foreign film.

And being away and not performing for a long time and really connecting with my audience for a long time, I have a great responsibility to myself and to them to do it exactly the way the process was when I was young.

No, I got my web site going and said I have the record out. People were just falling on the floor - they couldn't believe it - after all that time. You know, it wasn't a compilation, it was new songs.

When Elvis was performing, you just tried to figure out a way to get there. I think he set all the records and anyone that has ever had the good fortune to see him, you know what it's like to try to get in to see Elvis. It was impossible, practically.

The happy story right now is the full page in Vanity Fair, which gives me a great deal of exposure.

We have to set our own agenda, we have to set our own standards, we have to be very strong about what we want, we have to be very strong about our passion and if it's not right for you, you shouldn't do it just because you're advised by so-called geniuses.

I would think, to me, growing up in the south, growing up with all the gospel music, singing in the church and having that rhythm and blues - the blues background was my big inspiration.

I was lucky enough to first meet Elvis at his house in Bel Air and he used to invite different artists, singers and musicians, to come and jam with him at his house.

Shell tease you Shell unease you Just to please you Shes got Bette Davis eyes

The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century.

I don't know if it was the whole audience getting stoned out of their minds getting ready for the Floyd thing or what it was, but it was like playing to a painting.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

I don't like painting flowers in my music. I like painting guts and pain.

Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.

If the weather is good I go into the nearby wood - there I am painting a small beech forest (in the sun) with a few conifers mixed in. This takes until 8 'o clock.

The paintings may communicate even better because people are lazy and they can look at a painting with less effort than they can read a poem.

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.

The worlds I paint leave a lot to engage the imagination by hinting at what lies beyond the four edges of the painting. I think getting beyond the four edges of an opportunity or challenge is one of the basic skills you need in business.

When I was in art college, I would be painting, and I would create something on a canvas that was actually quite attractive. But if I got frightened and tried to protect that, that canvas would die.

My movement from painting to film was a very conscious one.

I believe that painting should come through the avenues of meditation rather than the canals of action.

For example, in painting the form arises from abstract elements of line and color, while in cinema the material concreteness of the image within the frame presents - as an element - the greatest difficulty in manipulation.

Coming to understand a painting or a symphony in an unfamiliar style, to recognize the work of an artist or school, to see or hear in new ways, is as cognitive an achievement as learning to read or write or add.

I see architecture not as Gropius did, as a moral venture, as truth, but as invention, in the same way that poetry or music or painting is invention.

Painting... in which the inner and the outer man are inseparable, transcends technique, transcends subject and moves into the realm of the inevitable.

When we don't have information, we go to the simplest outlook, to black and white. But then we have to lie to ourselves. Black is never as black as you're painting it and white is never as white.

I was not out to paint beautiful pictures; even painting good pictures was not important to me. I wanted only to help the truth burst forth.

Painting is a nail to which I fasten my ideas.

Painting is a hobby for me.

I'm a secretive bastard. I would never let anybody watch me painting... it would be like somebody watching you have sex - painting is that personal to me.

Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.

Well, I am not interested in the kind of expression that you have when you paint a painting with brush strokes. It's all right, but it's already done and I want to do something new.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

Landscape is to American painting what sex and psychoanalysis are to the American novel.