A SCULPTURE is just a PAINTING CUT out and STOOD up SOMEWHERE.

I WROTE as a KID, but I never wanted to be a WRITER, particularly. I had been drawing and painting for YEARS and loved that.

A PAINTING should be TOUGH; it should have MUSCLE, but I have to FIND some tenderness in it, too. There has to be that DYNAMIC.

Now, I LOVE painting. I love looking. I love the fact that they don't move. They CONSTANTLY change with the LIGHT. They are SORT of patient.

Small paintings can be FANTASTIC. But you can't OFTEN get a narrative out of a small PAINTING. In any case, museums are huge places, and you want to TAKE up some space.

One drawing demands to BECOME a painting, so I start to work on that, and then the painting might demand something else. Then the painting might say, 'I want a COMPANION, and the companion should be like this,' so I have to find that, EITHER by drawing it myself or locating the image.

Sometimes I can see the whole PAINTING from the outset in my mind's EYE. But more often than not, that idea doesn't LAST the duration of the painting. Sometimes it comes out easy, just as I had envisaged. But that is reasonably rare.

I have always been STRUCTURED. What has changed is the PROPORTIONS. Now it is eight HOURS of paperwork and one of painting.

A PAINTING that doesn't SHOCK isn't WORTH painting.

I'm not GOING to SIT for some PAINTING. That's so 1800s. I'm not doing that.

I never SAW a painting that WOULD not be IMPROVED by the ADDITION of tropical FISH.

I GO through the arc of a RELATIONSHIP with EVERY single painting that I do.

There is no such THING as GOOD PAINTING about NOTHING.