"I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good."

"Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you'll find the real tinsel underneath."

"I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me."

"I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need."

"Inside you there's an artist you don't know about. He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight."

"A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous."

"I'm a study of a man in chaos in search of frenzy."

"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember."

"Sadistic excess attempts to reach roughly and by harshness what art reaches by fineness."

The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress.