“I always was alone. And I’m alone today. It’s fine. I have lots of friends, but not in terms of working together.”

Every one of my works, when I’m looking back, becomes some kind of solution, or something to concentrate on.

Maybe that’s why I was left out of a lot of things, or why my work was not really understood, because there was no precedent for it.

I went through about six or seven painting methods just to see what I didn’t want to do. And then I got off the wall, and went into the environment.

What I did for my last act as a painter, if you call me a painter, was to photograph the weave of the canvas, and enlarge it and enlarge it until it became like a landscape.

And I even like my own company. But when I’m alone, it’s to read or write. I’m in my thoughts. Mostly I’m learning.

Most wonderful things are unconscious.

I studied how to mine a landfill and what to plant in it. It’s fascinating because you learn a new field each time.

I never considered myself a performance artist.

I hate to put tags on things, because tags change, and they change with the requirements made on them.

So the understructure should be underrated, but strong enough to hold the earth.

Words are changing. I find that old expressions are outdated, so when I write something, I try to find a new expression that hasn’t been born yet. It’s difficult.

Something to pay attention to and maybe change direction.

If I could relive my life, what I would do is work with scientists. But not one scientist, because they’re locked into their little specializations.

And combining the two is creating this beautiful alliance between humanity and nature. That’s why my forests are mathematical expansion systems, all of them.

The tree is made by nature, mathematics by people.

Society likes to file you away, put you in this or that category. And I never fit any category.

There are probably a few library fines I haven’t paid yet, but I’m a pretty clean-cut guy overall.

I believed there was enough evidence to go to trial. Grand jury said there wasn’t. Okay, fine. Do I have a right to disagree with the grand jury? Many Americans believe O.J. Simpson was guilty.

History will dictate what my legacy is. And ‘maverick’ is fine, because I am.

People go through life blindly, ignoring death like revellers at a party feasting on fine foods. They ignore that later they will have to go to the toilet, so they do not bother to find out where there is one.

For me, there’s a fine line between telling a story that’s fictional with lots of details and then removing yourself too much from it, so it’s bloodless, a little too fictional.

I’m fine with that. People say things when it’s time to say them.

Science was tearing through the ‘fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs’.

Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.