"Most artists work all the time, they do actually, especially good artists, they work all the time, what else is there to do? I mean you do."

"You had to be aware that I saw that photography was a mere episode in the history of the optical projection and when the chemicals ended, meaning the picture was fixed by chemicals, we were in a new era."

"I made a photograph of a garden in Kyoto, the Zen garden, which is a rectangle. But a photograph taken from any one point will not show, well it shows a rectangle, but not with ninety degree angles."

"Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny."

"The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist."

"I'm a bit claustrophobic, I know that now."

"There are enough no smoking places now."

"Television is becoming a collage - there are so many channels that you move through them making a collage yourself. In that sense, everyone sees something a bit different."

"What I didn't know was I was deeply attracted to the big space."

"But the moment you use an ordinary camera, you are not seeing the picture, remember, meaning, you had to remember what you've taken. Now you could see it of course, with a digital thing, but remember in 1982 you couldn't."

"Well you can't teach the poetry, but you can teach the craft."

"It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work."

"We live in an age where the artist is forgotten. He is a researcher. I see myself that way."

"Smoking calms me down. It's enjoyable. I don't want politicians deciding what is exciting in my life."

"We grow small trying to be great."

"Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus."

"I think Picasso was, without doubt, the greatest portraitist of the 20th century, if not any other century."

"Well, in Bradford I could say I was brought up in Bradford and Hollywood."

"A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light."

"And then I went round the corner and there's a Van Gogh portrait, and you just think, well, this is another level. A higher level, actually. I love the Sargent, but it's not the level of Van Gogh."

"But slowly I began to use cameras and then think about what it was that was going on. It took me a long time, I mean I actually played with cameras and photography for about 20 years."

"But, I would always be thinking of how pictures are constructed and colour, how to use it, I mean you're using it for constructing, makes you think about it, the place did as well."