Very interesting for an old duffer like me to try his hand at something new. If I don't do that once in a while, I might just turn into a fossil, you know!

I just wanted to do something important.

I had a couple of million dollars' worth of... stock once. And now it's not worth much more than wallpaper. I guess I just wasn't born to be rich.

I used to sit in the studio with a copy of the (Saturday Evening) Post laid across my knees ... And then I'd conjure up a picture of myself as a famous illustrator and gloat over it, putting myself in various happy situations, surrounded by admiring females, deferred to by office flunkies at the magazines, wined and dined by the editor.

No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He's got to put all his talent and feeling into them!

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.

Some folks think I painted Lincoln from life, but I haven't been around that long. Not quite.