It wouldn't be right for me to clown around when I'm painting a president.

I'm not going to be caught around here for any fool celebration. To hell with birthdays!

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.

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.

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.

The view of life I communicate in my pictures excludes the sordid and ugly. I paint life as I would like it to be.

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