I think, what has this day brought me, and what have I given it?

All art is an abstraction to some degree.

I'm very grateful that I was too poor to get to art school until I was 21. . . I was old enough when I got there to know how to get something out of it.

The important thing is somehow to begin.

Because a work does not aim at reproducing natural appearances it is not, therefore, an escape from life -- but may be a penetration into reality...as expression of the significance of life, a stimulation to greater effort in living.

I find in all the artists that I admire most a disturbing element, a distortion, giving evidence of a struggle . . . . In great art, this conflict is hidden, it is unresolved. All that is bursting with energy is disturbing - not perfect.

To know one thing, you must know the opposite.