Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something.

God told me if I painted that mountain enough, I could have it.

To make your unknown known - that's the important thing.

The meaning of a word - to me - is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words.

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.

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.

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.