“It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way not his way.”

The problem of a painting is physical and metaphysical, the same as I think life is physical and metaphysical.

A painter is a choreographer of space.

From the very beginning I felt that I would do a series.

We have lost contact with man’s natural desire for the exalted, for a concern with our relation to absolute emotions.

I know that it is impossible to talk about my work. And since it’s impossible for me or anybody else to talk about my work, I feel I might as well talk about it.

The impulse of modern art was this desire to destroy beauty.

We are in the process of making the world, to a certain extent, in our own image.

Aesthetics is to artists as ornithology is to birds.

I prefer to leave the paintings to speak for themselves.

Sculpture is what you bump into when you back up to see a painting.

Painting, like passion, is a living voice.

Any art worthy of its name should address ‘life’, ‘man’, ‘nature’, ‘death’ and ‘tragedy’.

What is the explanation of the seemingly insane drive of man to be painter and poet if it is not an act of defiance against mans fall and an assertion that he return to the Garden of Eden? For the artists are the first men.

Painting, like passion, is a living voice, which, when I hear it, I must let it speak, unfettered.

Aesthetics is for the artist like ornithology is for the birds.

I hope that my painting has the impact of giving someone, as it did me, the feeling of his own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individuality.

In teaching, you do not want to COVER things, you want to UNCOVER them. The best way to get good ideas is to have lots of ideas.

When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.

Don’t think. That is the wrong way to bring anything back. Let it go. Sooner or later it will flash into your mind.

You have to learn a few things, which you do along the way, but basically, poetry is a matter of the ear. Iambic pentameters or what constitutes a stanza comes naturally – your ears will know.

Now naturally, like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways.

Love is like water; like a river crushing through the mountains to carve its own path. Love will make its own way but only if you have the courage to follow.

I like to help women help themselves, as that is, in my opinion, the best way to settle the woman question. Whatever we can do and do well we have a right to, and I don’t think any one will deny us.

Such ever was love’s way: to rise, it stoops.