I knew de Kooning and I went to his studio so I knew about de Kooning's work. But only a little handful knew about it, you know. Maybe there were ten people that knew about it.

I have never been able to understand the artist whose image never changes.

The key is what is within the artist. The artist can only paint what she or he is about.

I am never free of the past. I have made it crystal clear that I believe the past is part of the present which becomes part of the future.

At that point it certainly would be called abstract. That is to say, you had a model and there'd be one or two or three people there drawing the model but otherwise you had abstractions all around the room, even though the model was in front of you.

I think, if one is a painter, all you experience does come out when you’re painting.

Painting... in which the inner and the outer man are inseparable, transcends technique, transcends subject and moves into the realm of the inevitable.