It was told in the Bible. A man fell. He bit into knowledge and fell... How do you fall without falling completely? What do you bring as knowledge to a blank canvas? How do you begin?

There are people who can't stand the pain. What happens is they begin to develop some kind of technique to keep out of that hole. Once they do that, they're finished. They never go any further. They're done.

As soon as you see what you're looking at you have a name for it. You don't see it. The whole process of your thinking is not to see. You overcome sight by thinking.

You have to give in to what the paint says... You have to do what it's telling you to do.

I'd fallen asleep thinking I was much too tired to go on working and if I went on working, I'd lose it. I'd get a better hold of it in the morning; feel stronger. But I looked and looked at it and it seemed to me there was nothing to do.

As long as you can change paint, you don't change. For you to change - for paint to do something to you - paint must stay constant.

There's something peculiar about artists. They have ups and downs... After a while everything you do is just wonderful... then you slide back. If you're a good artist you're going to go down. And then it's up to you.