“For me, the heyday was in 1959. It was before the Ferus Gallery moved ...” — Billy Al Bengston Quote

“For me, the heyday was in 1959. It was before the Ferus Gallery moved across the street, in the days when Ed Kienholz and Walter Hopps ran it. At that time, art was taken very seriously in terms of being an artist, and not as a profession.”

“We believed that there's no such thing as good art or bad art. Art is art. If it's bad, it's something else. It was a much, much harder line in the '50s and '60s than it is now, because the idea of art education didn't exist - they didn't have a fine arts program when I was a kid.”

“The art from the East is influenced by nature and touch. That comes from being more attuned to the environment.”

“I'm doing what all modern artists do now, which is nothing - just sit around and dream about things. I'll do what they call 'the stroke of genius.'”

“Art is something you can't teach, but you can inspire it.”

“I never do the cute thing with animals; they are interesting shapes. I just use their profile. Because German shepherds are so easily recognizable, they would fall outside my purview.”

“Minimalism has a connotation of being reductive, and not in the best way. 'Brevetist' is a better term. I'm trying to be as concise as possible and still getting across to the reader. When information is delivered in that way, it is very satisfying to me.”

“Trauma fractures comprehension as a pebble shatters a windshield. The wound at the site of impact spreads across the field of vision, obscuring reality and challenging belief.”

“The human brain long ago evolved a mechanism for rewarding us when we encountered new information: a little shot of dopamine in the brain each time we learned something new. Across evolutionary history, compulsively seeking information was adaptive behavior.”

“I'm terrified about psychic people who have their little shops. I always walk across the street and go somewhere else. Imagine if one of them came out with their face all pale and said, 'Hurry up and enjoy yourself.' No one wants to know that.”

“Actors ought to be larger than life. You come across quite enough ordinary, nondescript people in daily life and I don't see why you should be subjected to them on the stage too.”