“Part of the problem [with Picasso's fame] lies with the artist himself - at that point when Picasso stopped making art and began making Picassos...it is a potentially fatal side-effect of success for any artist... Would it be a parody of modernism's self-referentiality to describe this point as one where the artist stops thinking like an artist and starts [painting] like an art historian?”

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”

“Opium had artistic significance, you know. Picasso smoked. He said the scent of opium was the least stupid smell in the world, except for that of the sea.”

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

“When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.”

“Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.”

“We artists are indestructible; even in a prison, or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell.”