I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.

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.

A flower touches everyone's heart.

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

I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.

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)

Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue - that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man's destruction is finished.