One wants one's work to be the world, but of course it's never the world. The work is in the world; it never contains the whole thing.

It's simple, you just take something and do something to it, and then do something else to it. Keep doing this, and pretty soon you've got something.

To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.

I tend to like things that already exist.

I think that one wants from a painting a sense of life. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement. It has to be what you can't avoid saying.

I am not strong on perfection.

Merce is my favorite artist in any field.