“The great artist is the simplifier.”

I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.

There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

In an artist’s life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.

The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting.

If you end up falling in love with someone, it’s because of them. If you end up hating someone, it’s because of you.

I wish they would take me as I am.

I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly’.

Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.

Conscience is a man’s compass.

One of the hardest things to do is to paint darkness which nonetheless has light in it.

One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

How lovely yellow is! It stands for the sun.

What is done in love is done well.

I am risking my life for my work, and half my reason has gone.

The only thing to do is to go one’s own way, to try one’s best, to make the thing live.

I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn’t paint.

A good producer brings out the best in the artist he’s working with. You shouldn’t be able to listen to something and say, ‘So-and-so produced this album.

Compared to a lot of artists, I’m usually quite covered up in videos and photo shoots.

I think I’m a much better painter than an actor.

It feels like I’m starting to come into my own in terms of where I want to go artistically, toward more complicated, interesting characters.

All were artists, playing foolish, having fights and making love as if the rest of the world had no racial problems whatsoever.

People sometimes ask if I want to be a solo artist, but it just wouldn’t be any fun being on your own.

There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman.