Jean-Michel Basquiat

“I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I'd draw a big ram's head, really messy. I'd never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Sp...”

“Believe it or not, I can actually draw.”

“I have done only two portraits: one of the artist Francesco Clemente and another of Andy Warhol.”

“My favorite Twombly is 'Apollo and the Artist,' with the big 'Apollo' written across it.”

“I am not a black artist, I am an artist.”

“I had some money, I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people.”

“Occasionally, when I get mad at a woman, I'll do some great, awful painting about her.”

“For a while, I was drawing on good paper, but now I've gone back to the bad stuff. I put matte medium on it. If you put matte medium on it, it seals up, so it doesn't really matter.”

“If I'm away from painting for a week, I get bored.”

“I thought I was going to be a bum the rest of my life.”

“I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was young.”

“Medicine men live in caves.”

“Charles Saatchi has never liked my work at all.”

“Since I was seventeen I thought I might be a star. I'd think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix... I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.”

“I have a painting where somebody's holding a chicken, and underneath the chicken is somebody's head.”

“The country makes me more paranoid, you know? I think the crazy people out there are little crazier.”

“I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.”

“I was a cute kid.”

“There are about 30 words around you all the time, like 'thread' or 'exit.'”

“I had very few friends. There was nobody I could trust. I left home when I was fifteen. I lived in Washington Square Park.”