A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience.

To me art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risk.

There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend: One day, the black will swallow the red.

I'm not an abstractionist. I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.

The most interesting painting is one that expresses more of what one thinks than of what one sees

There is more power in telling little than in telling all.

If you are only moved by color relationships, you are missing the point. I am interested in expressing the big emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom.

The artist invites the spectator to take a journey within the realm of the canvas... Without taking the journey, the spectator has really missed the essential experience of the picture.

You think my paintings are calm, like windows in some cathedral? You should look again. I'm the most violent of all the American painters. Behind those colours there hides the final cataclysm.

Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit.

Silence is so accurate.

I think that between 27 and 37 was a really big learning decade.

We're losing our way as a society. If we don't stand up, if we don't say what we think those rights should be, and if we don't protect them, we will very soon find out that we do not have them.

What you run away from owns you. You are the dog on a leash. The most you can do is to tug against the leash.

Hallucination is a raw climb to a dead end.

Don't need a degree in rocket science to do this job.

We are overcome by anguish at this illogical moment of humanity.

The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them

The spirit of the age is not synonymous with what the public likes.

I really, truly believe in learning from other people's mistakes.

It is not honest inquiry that makes anarchy; but it is error, insincerity, half belief and untruth that make it.