“Whether I'm painting or not, I have this overweening interest in humanity. Even if I'm not working, I'm still analyzing people.”

“All experience is great providing you live through it.If it kills you, you've gone too far.”

“Self-deception is a defining part of our human nature. By recognizing its various forms in ourselves and reflecting upon them, we may be able to disarm them and even, in some cases, to employ and enjoy them. This self-knowledge opens up a whole new world before us, rich in beauty and subtlety, and frees us not only to take the best out of it, but also to give it back the best of ourselves, and, in so doing, to fulfil our potential as human beings. I don't really think it's a choice.”

“I took big, hungry bites out of life, and I'm still not full.”

“It seems to me that there are three principal scales of time, the present moment, a human lifetime, and the eternal. The problem with modern man is not so much that he situates himself in the future of a human lifetime, since he fears death far too much to do that, but rather than he does not situate himself in any of these three scales of time. Instead, he is forever stuck somewhere in-between, this evening, tomorrow morning, next week, next Christmas, in five years’ time. As a result, he has neither the joy of the present moment, nor the satisfied accomplishments of a human lifetime, nor the perspective and immortality of the eternal.”

“I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.”

“I'm mad about the waste that happens when people who love each other can't even bring themselves to talk.”