So that ideas of sort of relaxed symmetry have been something for years that I have been concerned with because I think that symmetry is a neutral shape as opposed to a form of design.

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

I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they're surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.

My concern is never art, but always what art can be used for.

I used to think of that line in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl', about the 'sad cup of coffee'.. ..I have had cold coffee and hot coffee and lousy coffee, But I've never had a sad cup of coffee.

I always have a good reason for taking something out but I never have one for putting something in. And I don't want to, because that means that the picture is being painted predigested.

I never allowed myself the luxury of those brilliant, beautiful colors until I went to India and saw people walking around in them or dragging them in the mud. I realised they were not so artificial.