But I was in awe of the painters; I mean I was new in New York, and I thought the painting that was going on here was just unbelievable

I still have a struggle reading (dyslexia, fh) and so I don't read much.. ..Probably the only reason I'm painter is because I couldn't read yet I love to write, but when I write I know what I'm writing, but when I'm reading I can't see it, because it goes from all sides of the page at once. But that's very good for printmaking.

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.

Well, I like way downtown near the Battery. I lived down there at this time and for, I guess, the following well, this is where I moved to uptown and I've been here for four years and this is 1965.

Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can't read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.

I'm sure we don't read old paintings the way they were intended

There was a whole language that I could never make function for myself in relationship to painting, and that was attitudes like tortured, struggle, pain.