I'd rather risk an ugly surprise than rely on things I know I can do.

What has made it work, or what makes certain paintings successful or not, has to do with my being a painter and a thinking, feeling person, more than my sex, color, height, origin.

One really beautiful wrist motion, that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it. It looks as if it were born in a minute.

I had the landscape in my arms as I painted it. I had the landscape in my mind and shoulder and wrist.

Every canvas is a journey all its own.

Every so often every artist feels, 'I'll never paint again. The muse has gone out the window.' In 1985, I hardly painted at all for three months, and it was agonizing. I looked at reproductions. I stared at Matisse. I stared at the Old Masters. I stared at the Quattrocento. And I thought to myself - Don't push it! If you try too hard to get at something, you almost push it away.

I've explored a variety of directions and themes over the years. But I think in my painting you can see the signature of one artist, the work of one wrist.