There are no hidden depths to me.

Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art. I buy art that I like. I buy it to show it off in exhibitions. Then, if I feel like it, I sell it and buy more art.

Who’s to say what will one day appear to have been trendsetting? Sometimes artists who receive breathless acclaim initially, seem to conk out. Other artists who don’t register so keenly at the time, prove to be trailblazers.

When a critic knows what she or he is looking at and writes revealingly about it, it’s sublime.

If you can’t take a good kicking, you shouldn’t parade how much luckier you are than other people.

I don’t buy art in order to leave a mark or to be remembered; clutching at immortality is of zero interest to anyone sane.

If you study a great work of art, you’ll probably find the artist was a kind of genius. And geniuses are different to you and me.

When you see something special, something inspired, you realise the debt we owe great curators and their unforgettable shows – literally unforgettable because you remember every picture, every wall and every juxtaposition.

The art critics on some of Britain’s newspapers could as easily have been assigned gardening or travel, and been cheerfully employed for life.

Few people in contemporary art demonstrate much curiosity. The majority spend their days blathering on, rather than trying to work out why one artist is more interesting than another, or why one picture works and another doesn’t.