Inspiration is for amateurs.

Painting is the frozen evidence of a performance.

Every child should have a chance to feel special.

I'm poor white trash from the state of Washington.

All the fingerprint paintings are done without a grid.

It's always a pleasure to talk about someone else's work.

Paintings can make you cry and it's just **colored dirt**.

If it looks like art, chances are it's somebody else's art.

Far more interesting than problem solving is problem creation.

I'm very learning-disabled, and I think it drove me to what I'm doing.

I learned you could suffer a terrible tragedy and still be happy again.

From my point of view, photography never got any better than it was in 1840.

Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.

All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.

I think women realise that I love women, and very often women seem to love me.

I only use three primaries, so the nice thing is I can't have favorite colors.

I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.

If you're overwhelmed by the size of a problem, break it down into smaller pieces.

I only have so much time and energy and money, and I'm going to put it into my work.

I'm plagued with indecision in my life. I can't figure out what to order in a restaurant.

Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don't apply to you.

Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don’t apply to you.

No one was more surprised than me when my paintings started selling, except maybe my dealer.

Of all the artists who emerged in the '80s, I think perhaps Cindy Sherman is the most important.

I love making art... It's largely how I see myself. I'm an artist; therefore I have to make art.

Sometimes I really want to paint somebody and I don't get a photograph that I want to work from.

I build a painting by putting little marks together-some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts.

There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.

I never said the camera was truth. It is, however, a more accurate and more objective way of seeing.

In my art, I deconstruct and then I reconstruct, so visual perception is one of my primary interests.

Inspiration is for amateurs. professionals work everyday. Personally the best inspiration is a deadline.

I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system.

I have always attempted to create images that deliver the maximum amount of information about the subject.

Women in general interest me. I like how women are more liable to talk about real things, personal things.

Having a routine, knowing what to do, gives me a sense of freedom and keeps me from going crazy. It's calming.

I've always thought that problem-solving is highly overrated and that problem creation is far more interesting.

I always thought problem solving was greatly overrated - and that the most important thing was problem creation.

The first thing I do is take Polaroids of the sitter - 10 or 12 color Polaroids and eight or 10 black-and whites.

Painting is a lie. It's the most magic of all media, the most transcendent. It makes space where there is no space.

There are things about signing on to a process over the long term that protect you from the buffeting winds of change.

Any artist who goes to Las Vegas is an idiot as far as I am concerned. Whoever goes to Las Vegas can stay in Las Vegas.

I have a great deal of difficulty recognizing faces, especially if I haven't - if I've just met somebody, it's hopeless.

Every idea occurs while you are working. If you are sitting around waiting for inspiration, you could sit there forever.

Sculpture occupies real space like we do... you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object.

I am going for a level of perfection that is only mine... Most of the pleasure is in getting the last little piece perfect.

Any innovation that is evident in my paintings is a direct result of something that happened in the course of making a print.

It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.

A photograph doesn't gain weight or lose weight, or change from being happy to being sad. It's frozen. You can use it, then recycle it.

What difference does it make whether you're looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look.

Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic.

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