“I wanted to build up a name for myself.”

I try to think about life.

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

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.

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.

I thought, “Wait a minute. That’s the perfect name.” That kind of freed up my year but that’s where the name came from.

If you don’t own a train company then you go and paint on one instead… it all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something… that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it.

The very thing that drives you, can drive you insane Got a head full of thought crimes and a number with no name Got an eleventh hour Jesus and a mouth full of blame A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name.

the fastest-growing brand of religion is of the magical ‘name it and claim it’ variety, in which the deity exists only to meet one’s immediate, self-identified needs.

I’m convinced that had I not changed my name, I don’t think I would have had quite the same career curve that I eventually had.

You have to all combine and fight a head-on battle – in the name of justice and equality – and even that’s going to be difficult. But if we let ourselves get separated so that we’re working for gays or school children or the aged, we’re in trouble.

Her body may lay on your sheets, but my name sits softly on your lips.

It’s not the name that makes the player. It’s the player.