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

Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression. It is so spontaneous. And after singing, I think the violin. Since I cannot sing, I paint.

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 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.

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

To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.

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.

You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.

It was in the 1920s, when nobody had time to reflect, that I saw a still-life painting with a flower that was perfectly exquisite, but so small you really could not appreciate it.

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

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

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.

Anyone who doesn't feel the crosses simply doesn't get that country.

I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

The days you work are the best days.

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

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

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.

I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.

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.

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

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. 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.

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

I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.

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.

I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality, I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say in paint.

I hate flowers - I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way--things I had no words for.

War is killing the individual in it unless he has learned livingness if he had it he wouldnt be a good soldier.

If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it its your world for a moment.

Its not enough to be nice in life. Youve got to have nerve.

Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.

The fact is inner-city black districts are not the same as suburban Republican districts. That's a fact. And people need to go and learn about the whole country.

I never turned down anything and never argued with any producer or director.

Stage fright is not a thing about 'Am I any good?' It's about 'Am I gonna be good tonight?' It's a right-now thing. It helps me. If I went out there thinkin', 'Eh, we'll go slaughter 'em,' I'm positive something would go seriously wrong.

Do not rebuke mockers, or they will hate you; rebuke the wise, and they will love you.

I don't like to not call a spade a spade.

I've always been into self-dramatization. I intend to live forever.

I want to spend 100 percent of my time focused on what I think I can make the biggest difference on as the governor of California.

I don't see myself as a photographer. I still see the photographs and collages as a resource for the painting.

The fun thing about Snapchat is really the surprise and the joy that comes from learning how to use it.

I tend to like writing long stories in comics. I worked on 'Flash,' 'Teen Titans' and 'JSA' for years. I always like diving into characters.

We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us.

Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.

I love to be nervous before a scene.

Well, my mother, I knew until I was 13. She died when I was 13.

It's always been performance art, but now it's on a different level.