“Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.”

“It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.”

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

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

“The days you work are the best days.”

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

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.”

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

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.”

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