“You have to have the time to feel sorry for yourself in order to be a ...” — Robert Rauschenberg Quote

You have to have the time to feel sorry for yourself in order to be a good abstract expressionist.

Photography has always been a major part of my vision: my excuse for meddling with what the world looks like.

So that ideas of sort of relaxed symmetry have been something for years that I have been concerned with because I think that symmetry is a neutral shape as opposed to a form of design.

If you're going to paint extremely, you need a big piece of canvas.

And all of this, all these physical aspects of painting at that time excited me very much. You could do a picture in just black and white. I mean all the things, whether you're soliciting permission or not, do give you permission.

People tend to have a knee-jerk response to the word 'philosophy'. You imagine it's abstract and inaccessible.

I think most people, when they think about the Black Panther Party, they think in very abstract, caricatured terms. They think about black fists in the air, but they don't think about the actual people, and the families, and the relationships.

My connection with Brazil is so abstract. My blood and my way of thinking is Brazilian, but that's it. I don't tend to go back to the past, and although I have an apartment there, I rarely visit. When I move, I really move.

I think, for a lot of people, men or women, it's easy to have things not affect you because, it doesn't affect you. So to be a better ally, you have to look at it as if it's someone you know instead of this abstract person you've never met.