“You're like a witness. You're the one who goes to the museum and looks at the paintings. I mean the paintings are there and you're in the museum too, near and far away at the same time. I'm a painting. Rocamadour is a painting. Etienne is a painting, this room is a painting. You think that you're in the room but you're not. You're looking at the room, you're not in the room.”

“For a while, for as long as you're looking at it, that painting is the world and you get to be in it.”

“Whether you think you're right or you think you're wrong. You're right.""If you think in pictures, write. If you think in words, paint.”

“If you don't like the scene you're in, if you're unhappy, if you're lonely, if you don't feel that things are happening, change your scene. Paint a new backdrop.”

“Imagine your life is a big canvas. Picture it in your mind and think about the beginnning of your painting of life.You're fourteen yours old, and you are lucky if you have one seventh painted. Now imagine the rest of the canvas is totaly empty. Every day you live, and every month and every year, means another inch that is painted on that canvas. You're going to be painting this empty canvas with your life and when you get to the end of it, what is that painting going to look like?”

“Jesus, you get sentimental when you're high on paint fumes.”

“The scenic vistas of North Carolina and Tennessee make you feel like you're looking at a work of art, but crossing through the rural countryside of southwest Virginia and caressing the tall grass with your fingertips, you feel like you're part of the painting.”