I have painted portraits that to me are almost photographic. I remember hesitating to show the paintings, they looked so real to me. But they have passed into the world as abstractions - no one seeing what they are.

I know I can not paint a flower, I can not paint the sun on the desert on a bright summer morning but maybe in terms of paint colour I can convey to you my experience of the flower or the experience that makes the flower of significance to me at that particular time.

I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.

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.

One can not be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love America and then work.

I don't very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.

Marks on paper are free - free speech - press - pictures all go together I suppose.