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

I think words come between the spectator and the picture.

Matisse was very clear about saying that you have to blow your own trumpet and explain yourself, which I think has been slightly forgotten.

A collection makes its own demands. Many artists have been collectors. I think of it rather as an illness. I felt it was using up too much energy.

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.

Wilson, you are his horse, so I think you can sit down.