An artist has to train his responses more than other people do. He has to be as disciplined as a mathematician. Discipline is not a restriction but an aid to freedom. It prepares an artist to choose his own limitations.

The Gold Rush and the Pony Express made Sacramento a substantial place in terms of enterprise.

My subject matter was a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be . . . . I would really think of the bakery counters, of the way the counter was lit, where the pies were placed, but I wanted just a piece of the experience. From when I worked in restaurants . . . [it was] always poetic to me.

I haven't the slightest idea what art is, but to be a painter is something of which you have to prove.

Commonplace objects are constantly changing… The pies, for example, we now see, are not going to be around forever. We are merely used to the idea that things do not change.

If we don't have a sense of humor, we lack a sense of perspective

Art means something very rare, an extraordinary achievement.