War is killing the individual in it unless he has learned livingness - if he had it he wouldn't be a good soldier.

God told me if I painted that mountain enough, I could have it.

One can't paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.

I realized that I had things in my head not like what I had been taught - not like what I had seen - shapes and ideas so familiar to me that it hadn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to stop painting, to put away everything I had done, and to start to say the things that were my own.

It seems to me very important to the idea of democracy to the country and to the world eventually that all men and women stand equal under the sky.

I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary--you're happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.