Nature is inside art as its content, not outside as its model.

Nature is inside art as its content, not outside as its model.

The arts are not just instantaneous pleasure -- if you don't like it, the artist is wrong. I belong to read more

The arts are not just instantaneous pleasure -- if you don't like it, the artist is wrong. I belong to the generation which says if you don't like it, you don't understand and you ought to find out.

I have been no more than a medium, as it were.

I have been no more than a medium, as it were.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt read more

I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. 'That's different. For a monkey, it's terrific.' - "London Magazine", March, 1967.

You do have to be fairly selfish when you have a gift. You cannot afford to let too many outside read more

You do have to be fairly selfish when you have a gift. You cannot afford to let too many outside things get in the way.

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.

An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason read more

An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.

Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.

Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.