I asked someone once why he liked Jean-Michel's work and why it was being singled out for acclaim, and he said, 'Because it looks like art.' But then again, art doesn't always look like art at first. The way the space shuttle that lifts off doesn't much resemble the space shuttle as it lands.

To support myself as a kid, I was a model at art schools around Boston.

I want my soldiers - I mean artists - to be young and strong, with tireless energy performing impossible feats of cunning and bravura.

You don't know how pretty you are when you're young. Just being young is beautiful. And I was astonishingly pretty - you know, very skinny.