“Every single line means something.”

I am not a black artist, I am an artist.

I cross out words so you will see them more; the fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them.

If you wanna talk about influence, man, then you’ve got to realize that influence is not influence. It’s simply someone’s idea going through my new mind.

Most Young Kings Get Their Heads Cut Off.

Fire will attract more attention than any other cry for help.

I start a picture and I finish it. I don’t think about art while I work.

I don’t think about art when I’m working. I think about life.

I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was young.

My favorite Twombly is ‘Apollo and the Artist,’ with the big ‘Apollo’ written across it.

I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.

The black person is the protagonist in most of my paintings.

I cross out words so you will see them more

The more I paint the more I like everything.

I wanted to be a star, not a gallery mascot.

Since I was seventeen I thought I might be a star. I’d think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix…

I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I’d draw a big ram’s head, really messy.

I do feel like a Clevelander. Every time, when people ask me, I automatically say, ‘My home is Cleveland.’

The reason why I wanted to direct is because there are personal stories that I want to tell, but also because I love every part of movie making – from the wardrobe to the set decoration to cinematography.

The vast majority of the American people are hard-working taxpayers who take responsibility for their families, go to work every day, they pay their mortgage on time, they volunteer in the community.

Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.

It’s not beneficial when you have a presidential candidate like Donald Trump, telling his supporters “punch that guy in the face.” I think everyone candidate ought to aspire toward civility, towards decency, towards bringing us together. I don’t think we should be using angry and hateful rhetoric.

We don’t have storm troopers that just knock on the door of every American citizen. We don’t do that for any crime. But when we have evidence that a particular person has committed a crime, we send law enforcement to apprehend them.

The truth is every problem can’t be solved by government. Many are caused by the moral breakdown in our society. And the answers to those challenges lie primarily in our families and our faiths, not our politicians.

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.