“Anyone who doesn’t feel the crosses simply doesn’t get that country.”

I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time.

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me – shapes and ideas so near to me – so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down.

I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at – not copy it.

Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue – that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man’s destruction is finished.

I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree.

Marks on paper are free – free speech – press – pictures all go together I suppose.

It was all so far away – there was quiet and an untouched feel to the country and I could work as I pleased.

The days you work are the best days.

I believe I would rather have Stieglitz like something – anything I had done – than anyone else I know.

I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

One can not be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love America and then work.

I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.

I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me – shapes and ideas so near to me – so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down.

I don’t very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.

The man who has not suffered – what does he know anyway?

People are terrified to be set free – they hold on to their chains. They fight anyone who tries to break those chains. It’s their security..

I fawn over these people. I have given them my heart and my soul. The trouble is, I’m unable to love anyone tangible

How can they expect me or anyone else to set them free if they don’t really want to be free?

How can I set free anyone who doesn’t have the guts to stand up alone and declare his own freedom?

On these days I go to my studio, leaf through an art history book, and tell myself that I am part of this great tradition.

They fight anyone who tries to break those chains. It’s their security How can they expect me or anyone else to set them free if they don’t really want to be free?

Coy Nature, (which remain’d, though aged grown, A beauteous virgin still, enjoy’d by none, Nor seen unveil’d by anyone),