What matters to me is that I do what I think is right and I see I'm a numbers guy that's my attitude. I know we have a debt tsunami coming we are bankrupting this country and I'm in a position where I can actually advance ideas to prevent that from happening. That's exactly what I should be doing.

A positive attitude is not going to save you. What it's going to do is everyday between now and the day you die whether that's a short time from now or a long time from now that every day you're going to actually live.

I'd like to introduce someone who has just come into my life. I've admired him for 35 years. He's someone who represents integrity honesty art and on top of that stuff I'm actually sleeping with him.

The downfall of the industry seems to actually be good for art. I think the industry will find their way once the focus shifts from its greed-based origins downsizes and begins to support creative visions that speak to our times and shifting ideals.

Because most of my career in the classroom has been at art schools (beginning at Bennington in the 1970s) I am hyper-aware of the often grotesque disconnect between commentary on the arts and the actual practice or production of the arts.

I went to art school actually when I was sixteen years old.

Actually I think Art lies in both directions - the broad strokes big picture but on the other hand the minute examination of the apparently mundane. Seeing the whole world in a grain of sand that kind of thing.

I think art is inherently nonviolent and it actually occupies your mind with creation rather than destruction.

I like it when somebody tells me a story and I actually really feel that that's becoming like a lost art in American cinema.

The finest works of art are precious among other reasons because they make it possible for us to know if only imperfectly and for a little while what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.