I don't really have a historical overview of my work at all. I'm not an art historian. I don't see that there's this period and that period.

In the United States there has been a kind of a structure in the Modern art world. The New York School was nearly a coherent thing-for a minute.

My friends tend to be writers. I think writers and painters are really all the same-we just sit in our rooms.

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.

I am happy for people to talk about my pictures, but I wish devoutly that I was not expected to talk about them myself.

Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that I eat too much-I'm one of nature's shoppers.