So I said to myself-I'll paint what I see-what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it-I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can clarify in paint.

If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.

I hate flowers - I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move.