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 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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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