An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.

I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage to love my first language Spanish to learn about Mexican history music folk art food and even the Mexican candy I grew up with.

These days newish art can be priced between $10 000 and $25 000. When I tell artists that a new painting by a newish artist should go for around $1 200 they look at me like I'm a flesh-eating virus.

I've always said that an art critic can put aside politics around art.

I can't bear art that you can walk round and admire. A book should be either a bandit or a rebel or a man in the crowd.

It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting and if you can walk around it it's a sculpture.

I'm enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic there's a commercial world around it: the ballet opera any kind of music. It can't exist without it.

The beginning of a friendship the fact that two people out of the thousands around them can meet and connect and become friends seems like a kind of magic to me. But maintaining a friendship requires work. I don't mean that as a bad thing. Good art requires work as well.

The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on science and art are as well.

Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization it is the best part of refinement and in many ways an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man's cruelty and baseness.