The artist confronts chaos. The whole thing of art is, how do you organize chaos?

Practically all great artists accept the influence of others. But... the artist with vision sees his material, chooses, changes, and by integrating what he has learned with his own experiences, finally molds something distinctly personnel.

When I conjure these memories, they are of the present to me, because after all, the artist is a kind of enchanter in time.

The most difficult object in painting is yourself because you're always at issue

I want to see how life can triumph.

Painting and art cannot be taught. You can save time if someone tells you to put blue and yellow together to make green, but the essence of painting is a self-disciplined activity that you have to learn by yourself.

It was not my aim to paint about the Negro in America in terms of propaganda. It is to depict the life of my people as I know it, passionately and dispassionately as Brueghel.