The painting is not on a surface, but on a plane which is imagined. It moves in a mind. It is not there physically at all. It is an illusion, a piece of magic, so that what you see is not what you see.

In my experience a painting is not made with colors and paint at all. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint?

I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint? It might be things, thoughts, a memory, sensations, which have nothing to do directly with painting itself. They can come from anything and anywhere.

Painting and sculpture are very archaic forms. It's the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual alone can make something with not just his own hands, but brains, imagination, heart maybe.

Usually I am on a work for a long stretch, until a moment arrives when the air of the arbitrary vanishes, and the paint falls into positions that feel destined.

I am a night painter, so when I come into the studio the next morning the delirium is over.

Look at any inspired painting. It's like a gong sounding; it puts you in a state of reverberation.

The painting is not on a surface, but on a plane which is imagined. It moves in a mind. It is not there physically at all. It is an illusion, a piece of magic, so that what you see is not what you see.

To paint is a possessing rather than a picturing.

Painting seems like some kind of peculiar miracle that I need to have again and again.

Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.

The canvas is a court where the artist is prosecutor defendant jury and judge. Art without a trial disappears at a glance.

Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or on the ball.

A woman should be an illusion.

Right now, there's the illusion of order and civilization, but there's a tremendous amount of economic tension in this country and the educational system is constantly eroding.

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.

Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.

Do not be misled by what you see around you, or be influenced by what you see. You live in a world which is a playground of illusion, full of false paths, false values and false ideals. But you are not part of that world.

It was either Voltaire or Charlie Sheen who said, 'We are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. And anything in between that can give us the illusion that we're not, we cling to.'

It is pure illusion to think that an opinion that passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false.

Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.

We're living under the illusion that we have the power to determine what to do with it.

They're not even within 100 miles of Baghdad. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion.

When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you're given a prescribed way of behaving. So, both Facebook and theatre provide contrived settings that provide the illusion of social interaction.

If you understand hallucination and illusion, you don't blindly follow any leader. You must know if the person is sane or insane, over the abyss.

We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.

Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth.

Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.

People have the illusion that all over the world, all the time, all kinds of fantastic things are happening. When in fact, over most of the world, most of the time, nothing is happening.

You can't walk alone. Many have given the illusion, but none have really walked alone. Man is not made that way. Each man is bedded in his people, their history, their culture, and their values.

Being a famous actress may give you a sense of being important, but believe me, it's just an illusion.

The preserve of ambition and folly in pursuit of illusion, or delusion.

Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidiest and most pernicious illusion.

I was well traveled, and I created this illusion of literacy through reading and writing. I wrote a book of short stories.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Everything is Song. Everything is Silence. Since it all turns out to be illusion, perfectly being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, you are free to die laughing.

The occupation and robbery of a nation occurs under the illusion of freeing its citizens from brutal oppression.

The world is real. Consciousness is the illusion.

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

If on the one side we do not harbor the illusion that the entire proletariat must be enlightened before it can be called into battle, so on the other we do not doubt that as much enlightenment as possible must be produced with oral and printed agitation.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one.

Free will is an illusion. People always choose the perceived path of greatest pleasure.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an illusion.