I have been very interested and intrigued and congratulatory toward President Bush and his paintings.

I have all the admiration in the world for somebody like Bono, who really puts himself on the line and tries actively to do something about our world situation.

I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

Sometimes I think that there’s a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

All art is but imitation of nature.

I admire people who destroy themselves.

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.

I don’t call myself a Buddhist. I’m a free spirit. I believe I’m here on earth to admire and enjoy it; that’s my religion.

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

I like having my hands in the clay. I like the movie-making process.

I don’t have stylistic loyalty. That’s why people perceive me changing all the time. But there is a real continuity in my subject matter. As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries.

Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

I was of the generation where most of the Disney princesses and female characters were not girls that I admired. They just weren’t characters I looked up to and identified with.

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

Yes, there is a terrible moral in ‚Dorian Gray‘ – a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

I admire Ralph Nader and Denis Kucinich very much, and insofar as they bring up issues and carry out an educational and organisational function – that’s important, and fine, and I support it.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, ‚What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?‘ And, ‚How does creativity apply across the board?‘

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

There’s been a lot of talk about Jack White wanting to work with me, and I’ve always admired him, and of course, he lives in Nashville, too.

Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity – and I don’t mean simple – it’ll be good, and the public will know it.

Nicki Minaj, I’m at MTV. I’m going to be honest with you: I love you. I like you. I want you; I want you to be mine. Only reason I’m not telling you this face to face is because I understand that you’re busy.

The job of art is to chase ugliness away.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

I never called my work an ‚art‘. It’s part of show business, the business of building entertainment.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

All art is quite useless.

I say this everywhere I go: I admire and respect Hillary. She has been a lawyer, a law professor, First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the United States, a U.S. Senator, Secretary of State.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you’d rather be in.

People in Latin America… love America from afar and emulate America in some ways but also hate a lot of things that America does to them.

We have listened too long to the courtly Muses of Europe.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

Doing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.

Painting, I think it’s like jazz.

In art the best is good enough.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

Nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all, you must not strip it of vitality.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

Barbra Streisand has accomplished so much, and Dustin Hoffman as well. They are down to earth and approachable. I admire that.

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?

Music belongs to the people. To no one else. To no one else.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.

Art is to be free. Design is to fix.