I've met and sketched most of the great athletes from the past five decades and their movement, grace and energy have kept me captivated over the years. That's what the ancient Greeks first saw and that's what caught my interest.

I always stayed in tune with my own ambitions and attitudes and I'm still my intractable old self, for better or worse.

When I paint, I seriously consider the public presence of a person - the surface facade. I am less concerned with how people look when they wake up or how they act at home. A person's public presence reflects his own efforts at image development.

I don't know if I'm an impressionist or an expressionist. You can call me an American first... I've been labeled doing neimanism, so that's what it is, I guess.

I want a really diverse range of different people under my belt. That's what I'm hoping to do with my career.

I do wish I'd had a better career. Who wouldn't?

The first thing I look at is, 'Is the entrepreneur going after really big problems, to the extent that it feels scary when they talk about it?' You wonder if the idea is possible. I have seen that a lot of times, people go after small problems, and that's a sign that they are not confident.

It's 2010. I'm forty-three years old. I've just turned in the final draft of what will be my third novel when I decide I want a tattoo. Maybe it's a middle-age thing. Or maybe now that my kids are nearly grown and I have a career in place, I'm finally coming into my own.