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.

I surrender to the world of my imagination, reenacting all those wonderful tales my father would read aloud to me. I became a very active reader, especially history and Shakespeare.

At 18 I began painting steadily fulltime and at age 20 had my first New York show at the Macbeth Gallery.

Believe in yourself and believe in love. Love something.

I don't really have studios. I wander around - around people's attics, out in fields, in cellars, anyplace I find that invites me.

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

I'm not at all interested in painting the object just as it is in nature. Certainly I'm much more interested in the mood of a thing than the truth of a thing.