I am not a black artist, I am an artist.

I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life.

I had some money, I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people.

I start a picture and I finish it.

I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.

I wanted to be a star, not a gallery mascot.

Believe it or not, I can actually draw.

I thought I was going to be a bum the rest of my life.

Since I was seventeen I thought I might be a star. I'd think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix... I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.

I am not a black artist, I am an artist.

Charles Saatchi has never liked my work at all.

For a while, I was drawing on good paper, but now I've gone back to the bad stuff. I put matte medium on it. If you put matte medium on it, it seals up, so it doesn't really matter.

I have a painting where somebody's holding a chicken, and underneath the chicken is somebody's head.

I have done only two portraits: one of the artist Francesco Clemente and another of Andy Warhol.

I like kids' work more than work by real artists any day.

I want to make paintings that look as if they were made by a child.

I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was young.

I wanted to build up a name for myself.

I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I'd draw a big ram's head, really messy. I'd never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman.

I'm not a real person. I'm a legend.

If I'm away from painting for a week, I get bored.

Occasionally, when I get mad at a woman, I'll do some great, awful painting about her.

Some days I can't get an idea, and I think, 'Man, I'm just washed up,' but it's just a mood.

The black person is the protagonist in most of my paintings. I realized that I didn't see many paintings with black people in them.

The country makes me more paranoid, you know? I think the crazy people out there are little crazier.

The more I paint the more I like everything.

There are about 30 words around you all the time, like 'thread' or 'exit.'

The country makes me more paranoid you know I think the crazy people out there are little crazier.

Every single line means something.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

I'm inspired by nature. Other artist's work is important for developing my perception.

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

What do you say when someone has truly inspired you? How do you express to an artist how deeply their work has affected you?

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.

You have to find what makes you stable in the storm. Then, no matter what's happening round you, no matter what the hype or the publicity, you can still manage to make leaps in your work as an artist.

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

I've always felt that if one was going to take seriously this vocation as an artist, you have to get beyond that decorative facade.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

The most colorful section of a bookstore is the display of SF books, with art by people like Wayne Barlow, who is a terrific artist.

Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.

Let not a man do what his sense of right bids him not to do, nor desire what it forbids him to desire. This is sufficient. The skillful artist will not alter his measures for the sake of a stupid workman.

I so much appreciate it when anybody tries to make something and tries to be an artist - I'm happy to see the work.

The artist is seen like a producer of commodities, like a factory that turns our refrigerators.