I don't see why we ever think of what others think of what we do – no matter who they are. Isn't it enough just to express yourself?

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

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.

The men liked to put me down as the best woman painter. I think I'm one of the best painters.

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

Filling a space in a beautiful way - that is what art means to me.

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

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

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.

When people read erotic symbols into my painting, they're really thinking about their own affairs.

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

the song of the deadheavy as rain on the wide banana leaveshard as drums

I know that sounds a little bit corny, but I've found some solace in that. I hope art can continue to do that for people, I really do.

Nothing ever turns out the way people expect it to.

I'd rather try and fail than not try at all, as they say

The only reason for being young is to outgrow it.

I have no qualifications to do anything else and there weren't any formal application forms you had to fill in for stand-up, so I thought I'd give that a twist.

I hate to repeat lines, to say the same damned thing. I try to rewrite cliches and make what I say sound fresh.

You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt.

It is always self-defeating to pretend to the style of a generation younger than your own; it simply erases your own experience in history.

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim.