I want real things ... music that makes holes in the sky.

My painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me.

I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down.

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 like to convey the idea that art is important in everyday life.

If one could only reproduce nature, and always with less beauty than the original, why paint at all?

I never knew [Alfred Stieglitz] to make a trip anywhere to photograph. His eye was in him, and he used it on anything that was nearby. Maybe that way he was always photographing himself.