I get cranky real easily. So the honor of it and the wonder of it all and everything has a hard time overcoming the petty annoyances; I mean, that's simply the reality of being alive, I guess.

Up until 35 I had a slightly skewed world view. I honestly believed everybody in the world wanted to make abstract paintings, and people only became lawyers and doctors and brokers and things because they couldn't make abstract paintings

As far as I was concerned, with the early paintings, I liked them, I thought they were pretty good, but I didn't think it was the end of the world. I also thought of it as a kind of structure, a base to build on. So this proves I can do this and that, and they don't collapse, so then what can I do from here? How can I build on it?

All I want anyone to get out of my paintings, and all I ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any confusion…What you see is what you see.

Scarlatti [Kirkpatrick] started writing sonatas when he was 66 and the idea that he ran off 500 or so after he was 66 was just too much for me to resist. It's just great.

I want to make exalted art. A successful image has pictorial lift. I am looking for whatever is up there

You see what you know!