You have to have the time to feel sorry for yourself in order to be a good abstract expressionist.

One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone.

By the time you establish your priorities, there really isn't any fun or need to interest yourself in what you're doing. And this I find disastrous.

I don't like masterpieces having one-night stands in collectors' homes between auctions.

Sometimes I have taken photographs and just felt so excited that I could barely hold the camera steady, and the photo was boring.

With me, it's much more a matter of accepting whatever happens, accepting all these elements from the outside and then trying to work with them in a sort of free collaboration.

For the first time, I wasn't embarrassed by the look of beauty, of elegance, because when you see someone who has only one rag as their property, but it happens to be beautiful and pink and silk, beauty doesn't have to be separated... I have always said that you shouldn't have biases, you shouldn't have prejudices. But before that [before his trip to India, circa 1975] I'd never been able to use purple, because it was too beautiful.