Toni Morrison

They decided to establish a museum of modern art where works by contemporary artists would be shown. Mother was viewed as a very progressive person, and not everybody liked the paintings she bought.

Art is self expression. If you are expressing someone else’s personality, that is not art.

Bad artists imitate, great artists steal.

There is no art without intention.

There’s no collection that has a better representation of post-war American art than David Geffen’s.

I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.

Truth exists in art.

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.

What’s any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What’s left of the man when the work’s done but a shambles of apology.

An artist can only be evaluated after he’s dead. At the 11th hour he might do something that will eclipse everything else.

It’s like telling Michelangelo: ‘I know you painted this dope angel, that was really good, but Michelangelo, I don’t think you can paint a cow.’

MoMA is doubling its space, and I decided to raise the money for it.

A poem is a naked person… Some people say that I am a poet.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

The Japanese have a wonderful sense of design and a refinement in their art. They try to produce beautiful paintings with the minimum number of strokes.