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.

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

You don't paint what you see, you paint what you feel.

The artist has to be something like a whale swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs.

Sometimes the mind relives things very clearly for us...There are roads out of secret places within us along which we all must move as we go to touch others.

Painting is the act of discovery and you're constantly enlarging your horizon or finding yourself every time you paint.

If you're any kind of artist, you make a miraculous journey, and you come back and make some statements in shapes and colors of where you were.