If somehow I can, before I leave this earth, combine my absolutely mad freedom and excitement with truth, then I will have done something.

I've tried never to be easily satisfied, and I've been painting like fury now for forty years.... I have a feeling. You paint about as far as your emotions go, and that's about it.

I wanted to get it all down, maybe out of my system. I wanted to be able to say, Everything's possible-if you believe and can get excited.

Artists today think of everything they do as a work of art. It is important to forget about what you are doing - then a work of art may happen.

Don't overdo it, don't underdo it. Do it just on the line.

I have a good friend, Rudolf Serkin, the pianist, a very sensitive man. I was talking to him one day backstage after a concert and I told him that I thought he had played particularly sensitively that day. I said, "You know, many pianists are brilliant, they strike the keys so well, but somehow you are different." "Ah," he said, "I don't think you should ever strike a key. You should pull the keys with your fingers."

I don't think that there is anything that is really magical unless it has a terrifying quality.