Eating A Raw Oyster Is Like French

Should One Be Shallow Enough To View Existence As A System Of Rewards And Punishments, One Soon Learns That We Pay As Dearly For Our Triumphs As We Do For Our Defeats.

I Had Literary Interests My Whole Life. I Decided At The Age Of Five I Was Going To Be A Writer. So I Had Done A Great Deal Of Reading. I Suppose I Was More At Home In Greenwich Village Than, Say, Any Of Classmates From Warsaw High School. But In Any Case, It Was An Overwhelming Experience For Me. It Took Me Some Time To Begin To Assimilate It.

When We Accept Bad Art Because It's Good Politics, We're Killing The Swan To Feed The Chickens.

What Is Politics, After All, But The Compulsion To Preside Over Property And Make Other Peoples' Decisions For Them?

I Go Into A Gallery Or Museum, And I Realize That I Don't Have To Formulate Any Opinions If I Don't Want To. I Don't Have To Think This Thing Through And Write About It At Any Great Length. I Can Think About It If I Want To; If Not, I Can Just Walk Out. So I Can Enjoy Painting Really A Lot More Than I Could When I Had That Sort Of Pressure.