“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.”

I had some money, I made the best paintings ever.

If I’m away from painting for a week, I get bored.

I try to think about life.

I’d never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman.

I wanted to build up a name for myself.

I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people.

Believe it or not, I can actually draw.

There are about 30 words around you all the time, like ‘thread’ or ‘exit.’

The country makes me more paranoid, you know? I think the crazy people out there are little crazier.

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.

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.

People flatter us because they can depend upon our credulity.

I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.

Forethought and prudence are the proper qualities of a leader. [Lat., Ratio et consilium, propriae ducis artes.]

Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.

Bodies are slow of growth, but are rapid in their dissolution. [Lat., Corpora lente augescent, cito extinguuntur.]

Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished.

I find ways to make things affordable. If the kids want the looks, they can be able to go afford it.

So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.