The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend but often those which meet the peculiar wants the natural thirst of his mind and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet neither thirsty nor drunken.

If you don't die of thirst there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness which we all yearn for or you can do the beauty of minutiae the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean and the crystal silence will uplift you like great gospel music or Neil Young.

Damien Hirst is the Elvis of the English art world its ayatollah deliverer and big-thinking entrepreneurial potty-mouthed prophet and front man. Hirst synthesizes punk Pop Art Jeff Koons Marcel Duchamp Francis Bacon and Catholicism.

We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.

I think Damien Hirst is hilarious. And I think he's a true artist. He's not hilarious first I think he is a real artist and I also think he's got an amazing sense of humor.