“The attitude and reactions of artists toward their art children reveal an attitude similar to that which mothers in general possess toward their children. There is the same sensitivity to any criticism, the same possessive pride.”

The artist always has been and still is a being somewhat apart from the rest of humanity.

The amount which cannot be harnessed and domesticated, but insists on its own form of activity rather than one which is offered ready made, is the energy used for the creation of art.

When one looks back over human existence however, it is very evident that all culture has developed through an initial resistance against adaptation to the reality in which man finds himself.

Fundamentally the male artist approximates more to the psychology of woman, who, biologically speaking, is a purely creative being and whose personality has been as mysterious and unfathomable to the man as the artist has been to the average person.

There is one great and universal wish of mankind expressed in all religions, in all art and philosophy, and in all human life: the wish to pass beyond himself as he now is.

Woman is a being dominated by the creative urge and . . . no understanding of her as an individual can be gained unless the significance and effects of that great fact can be grasped.

The creator does not create only for the pleasure of creating but . . . he also desires to subdue other minds.

The mystics are the only ones who have gained a glimpse into what is possible when this same capacity [for creation] is used primarily in the service of the individual himself instead of for the creation of art.

Man has a tendency to try to give clear reasons to be rational, but often you can see how all those reasons are not convincing and turn out to be a big nonsense.

Furthermore, the writer is not there to see the reaction of the person he writes to, so there’s a great unknown to the process that requires a leap of faith.

One reason for making and exhibiting a work is to induce a reaction or change in the viewer.

Nothing has happened to you unless you make much of it.

Half the time I feel like I’m talking to the wall because you don’t react at all and then the shock comes when I begin to scream that I just want somebody to listen to me.

A good test of a relationship is how a person responds to the word ‘no.’ Love respects ‘no,’ control does not.

Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children’s most primitive fears.

My first reaction was to ring him up. Then I remembered he was out there playing.