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.

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 can't work completely out of my imagination-I must put my foot in a bit of truth-and then I can fly free.

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

If you clean it up, get analytical, all the subtle joy and emotion you felt in the first place goes flying out the window.

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.

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