There's something in music that fascinates me - how it communicates emotion so immediately. That's something I wanted in my paintings.

I start listening to something, or I'm seeing somebody a lot or seeing their art. And then I just really want to make a picture of them.

I write to explore something that fascinates me, and I write the way I do because it is the only way I know how to write.

A painting of a person can be descriptive, but for me it's about all the things that make up a picture - the feelings, the brushstrokes - more than describing somebody. People latch on to the personalities when they talk about my work and forget the other parts.

Every usage, no matter how bizarre or nonstandard, fascinates me, as it tells me something about the way language is evolving.

Great music is like a query language for a database of emotions.