David Hockney: Love of life is what really matters

Doctors seem obsessed with the fear of death. Its opposite is the love of life, but sadly no official body seems to know this.

These proposals are absolutely outrageous. I don't believe a word they say about passive smoking. I have smoked for 52 years and I'm still here working away very ambitiously. The now far-too-passive English people will take this without a murmur.

I have nothing but utter contempt for the likes of the BMA [the British Medical Association, which has urged tougher restrictions on smoking] and their ghastly view of life; it's all quantitative, not qualitative. They treat adults like children, they are uglifying Europe with their ghastly signs everywhere, and pushing their drugs on children, far more than in the past. The press never criticise or ask good questions. I am begining to think that a side effect of feminism is infantilism, of which we seem to have an abundance. I have contempt for the media and political elite that have done this, and I don't think I am alone.

My advice is: Don't worry too much about the future, it's always NOW. A little bit of what you fancy does you good – that's an old observation lost on petty, mean-spirited, dreary people who look only at figures, and not at life.