When I found the beautiful white bones in the desert I picked them up and took them home too...I have used these things to say what is to me the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.

One day a hummingbird flew in-- It fluttered against the window til I got it down where I could reach it with an open umbrella-- --When I had it in my hand it was so small I couldn't believe I had it--but I could feel the intense life--so intense and so tiny-- ...You were like the humming bird to me... And I am rather inclined to feel that you and I know the best part of one another without spending much time together-- --It is not that I fear the knowing-- It is that I am at this moment willing to let you be what you are to me--it is beautiful and pure and very intensely alive.

Someone else's vision will never be as good as your own vision of your self. Live and die with it 'cause in the end it's all you have. Lose it and you lose yourself and everything else. I should have listened to myself.

Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense.

It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.

I have a single track mind. I work on an idea for a long time. It's like getting acquainted with a person, and I don't get acquainted easily.

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