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.

He wanted head and hands and arms on a pillow - in many different positions. I was asked to move my hands in many different ways - also my head - and I had to turn this way and that. There were nudes that might have been of several different people - sitting - standing - even standing upon the radiator against the window - that was difficult - radiators don't intend you to stand on top of them. (On being photographed by Alfred Stieglitz)

His letters ... have been like fine cold water when you are terribly thirsty.

A flower is relatively small... Still in a way-nobody sees a flower-so I said to myself-I'll paint it big.

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

I'd been taught to paint like other people, and I thought, what's the use? I couldn't do any better than they, or even as well. I was just adding to the brushpile. So I quit.

A flower touches everyone's heart.