Jenny Holzer

I used language because I wanted to offer content that people - not necessarily art people - could understand.

I seldom have my stuff up unless I'm testing it. If I'm worrying about a painting, I put it up and see if I detest it quickly or slowly. Otherwise I have things by other artists.

I'd paint long strips of canvas and abandon them on the beach, or put bread out in geometric patterns for the pigeons downtown. I wanted people to find something nice and intriguing to puzzle over. Then I'd go back to see if the things were still there, or if anyone would notice.

Lack of charisma can be fatal.

Alienation produces eccentrics or revolutionaries.

I really like doing the laundry, because I succeed at it. But I loathe putting it away. It is already clean.

It can be kind of gruesome at times, making things alone.

That's the test of street art - to see if anybody stopped. People would cross out ones they didn't like and would star others. I liked that people would engage with them.

The greatest disappointment is when you let yourself down.

I get up about four times a night and go back to sleep, or not. Then I swill tea around 8 a.m. I answer e-mail, while I stall thinking about whatever scares me.

I suspect you've noticed that making art can be lonely.

Exceptional people deserve special concessions.

It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender.

It's necessary to start most work alone. But I'm tickled to death when I can pull somebody in or join someone, whether it's borrowing poetry or traveling with an associate.

Expiring for love is beautiful but stupid.

Well, I think in trying to make life seem real enough that one is moved to do something about the more atrocious things. By going really far afield into a completely fake world, maybe there's a chance to make things resonant somehow - or in this case, truly terrifying. To make it as bad as the real stuff that's happening.

I'd been doing projects outdoors for the public. I made pigeons eat geometry by putting bread out in rhomboids and triangles. I don't know if this activity made sense, but the work was available.

On the worst days, I don't feel like an artist.

I am not free because I can be exploded anytime.

So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.

One thing that changed when I moved upstate was that I became interested in different materials. I started making the stone benches because I was seeing rocks.

I wanted to be an abstract painter, but I was rotten at it.

The desperate things seem to require attention, the lovely things seem to elicit celebration. If I had to choose, I would go to the awful in the hope that doing something could yield a happier result.

I think of a piece, and then people who are competent fabricate it. But lately I've started finger painting, which probably should be a joke but isn't!

Going with the flow is soothing but risky.

Sloppy thinking gets worse over time.

Use what is dominant in a culture to change it quickly.

You are a victim of the rules you live by.

Protect me from what I want.

The most profound things are inexpressible.

Company makes my day.

I'm always trying to bring unusual content to a different audience - a non-art-world audience.

I wanted to support things that are helpful to people and maybe bash what I think is dangerous. So I switched from being everybody to being myself.