An empty canvas is full only if you want it to be full.

There is no reason not to consider the world as one gigantic painting.

You begin with the possibilities of the material.

I don't really trust ideas - especially good ones... Rather, I put my trust in the materials that confront me, because they put me in touch with the unknown.

The only thing that I could get with chance, and I never was able to use it, was that I would end up with something quite geometric or the spirit that I was interested in, indulging in, was gone.

It is neither Art for Art, nor Art against Art. I am for Art, but for Art that has nothing to do with Art. Art has everything to do with life, but it has nothing to do with Art.

I've not been cursed with talent, which could be a great inhibitor.

An empty canvas is full.

The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history.

I don't think of myself as making art. I do what I do because I want to, because painting is the best way I've found to get along with myself.

Even at this late date, I go into my studio, and I think 'Is this going to be it? Is it the end?' You see, nearly everything terrorizes me. When an artist loses that terror, he's through.

If life throws you a few bad notes or vibrations, don't let them interrupt or alter your song.

Only through the conversion of time can greatness be bought.

A bird without wings and a man without art are both condemned to wander in low places

To be and not to be, that is the quantum question

Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they'll say, 'God, he said exactly what I was thinking.' And when they begin to respect you, they'll follow you to the death.

In the years when teenagers really need to be connected to somebody, they aren't; especially in small towns where kids are bored and look for something to get them going.

If Iran was a stock, you folks should go out and buy it right now.

Once you do one bad guy, usually all you get offered is bad guys.

Live and let live is the rule of common justice.

Competence is no longer scarce.