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Many artists use their own lives as a kind of case study to examine what it's like to be human.

Artists instinctively want to reflect humanity, their own and each other's, in all its intermittent virtue and vitality, frailty and fallibility.

I think that an artist is a bit like a computer. He receives information from the world around him and from his past and from his own experiences. And it all goes into the brain.

I think each artist lives with purpose. A strong sense of purpose. We know who's come before us.

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.

Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

I think with anything where you delve into the back story of an artist, it kind of explains their work more intimately.

Basically, an artist should be a mirror, or a reflection of society or his or her environment. What you see is what you can articulate.

I think the person creates the artist. And I think when you get lost within your person, your artistry get lost, too. It's like in 'Birdman.' Because the artist inside you is attached to your soul. And when you're not attached to yourself anymore, the soul goes away. You can't let that happen.

An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind.