When I finish a painting, it usually looks as surprising to me as to anyone else.

I'm very envious of the few artists who are any good and still do portraits.

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.

In the United States there has been a kind of a structure in the Modern art world. The New York School was nearly a coherent thing-for a minute.

I want my pictures to be things. I want them to be made up of marks that are physically and individually self-sufficient.

I am happy for people to talk about my pictures, but I wish devoutly that I was not expected to talk about them myself.

I am isolated as an artist, not as a person.