Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed. My fundamental purpose is to interpret the typical American. I am a story teller.

I know of no painless process for giving birth to a picture idea. When I must produce, I retire to a quiet room with a supply of cheap paper and sharp pencils; my brain knows it's going to take a beating.

My best efforts were some modern things that looked like very lousy Matisses. Thank God I had the sense to realize they were lousy, and leave Paris.

The Balopticon [a machine that projects photos on canvas to trace the lines] is an evil, inartistic, habit-forming, lazy and vicious machine! It also is a useful, time-saving, practical and helpful one. I use one often-and am thoroughly ashamed of it. I hide it whenever I hear people coming.

I learned to draw everything except glamorous women. No matter how much I tried to make them look sexy, they always ended up looking silly... or like somebody's mother.

Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative.

The remarks about my reaching the age of Social Security and coming to the end of the road, they jolted me. And that was good. Because I sure as hell had no intention of just sitting around for the rest of my life. So I'd whip out the paints and really go to it.