“I’d always been a news junkie, always read lots of newspapers and watched the Sunday morning news shows on TV and felt strongly about issues of power, control, sexuality and race.”

I have frequently said, and I will repeat again, in the manner of any well-meaning seriality, that I’m interested in mixing the ingratiation of wishful thinking with the criticality of knowing better.

I’ve always been very tied to language.

the art world has always been an unrelenting taste machine, but now flavors of the month have morphed into flavors of the minute. Again, all a reflection of a wider cultural condition. I mean, the art world is slow compared with the music and movie businesses.

Images are made palpable, ironed flat by technology and, in turn, dictate the seemingly real through the representative.

The place of the arts in the classroom is essential in encouraging invention, ambition, and an understanding of the importance and pleasures of living an examined life.

I want to speak, show, see, and hear outrageously astute questions and comments. I want to be on the sides of pleasure and laughter and to disrupt the dour certainties of pictures, property, and power.

But I really resist categories – that naming is a closing down of meaning. Women’s art, political art – those categorisations perpetuate a certain kind of marginality which I’m resistant to. But I absolutely define myself as a feminist.

GIVE YOUR BRAIN AS MUCH ATTENTION AS YOU DO YOUR HAIR AND YOU’LL BE A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER OFF.

There are so many moments and works that influence us in what we do. Movies, music, TV and, most importantly, the profound everydayness of our lives.

Fashion is everywhere and about everything. It is folly, vanity and the fun of it all. It is disguise, innuendo, and cunning. It is mean, gorgeous and ambitious, and definitely the last word for the next few seconds.

I want people to be drawn into the space of the work. And a lot of people are like me in that they have relatively short attention spans. So I shoot for the window of opportunity.

If most American cities are about the consumption of culture, Los Angeles and New York are about the production of culture – not only national culture but global culture.

I think pictures and words have the power to make us rich or poor.

If I bring up political power, personal power, it sounds like they’re my terms, and they’re not.

I worked with someone else’s photos; I cropped them in whatever way I wanted and put words on top of them. I knew how to do it with my eyes closed. Why couldn’t that be my art?

It’s hard for me to understand how working-class people support themselves.

I have so much respect for my opponents; many of them watched the races as little children and were supporting me!

In my opinion we are at the limit now, and 17 races is really too much. With all the testing that we do now, it means we’re always on the bike and it’s quite difficult.

To win the Championship in the first year will be hard. We need time to become competitive and win races.

My approach to the races hasn’t changed in my 20-year career. If I have the chance to attack and to pass, I do it, trying to get the best possible result.

I’m lucky because I don’t feel too much pressure – it’s only in the last hour before the race, and even then it’s good, positive pressure.

I’m very happy because I won a lot. I’ve won races and lived in a world that just gave me joy, so I remember it very positively.

I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.

I never race for records. The motivation to try to beat the record is not enough to continue. You have to enjoy it.