My painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me.

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 nature of revolutions is to sweep the reluctant along.

You know, as you get older, the first thing you lose is memory. It seems to be happening with me.

I think I'm going to my grave without swimming from Cuba to Florida.

Sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream.

The most effective way to achieve right relations with any living thing is to look for the best in it, and then help that best into the fullest expression.

While you are looking, you might as well also listen, linger and think about what you see.

Heck, I drank no more than John Wayne or Ward Bond or Spencer Tracy or Alan Ladd or Robert Walker. But it got me into a lot more trouble.

I'm not aiming for a knockout. I focus on doing my best. If the knockout comes, fine. If not, that's okay.

Even as age humbles me it feeds my arrogance. There is still nothing that interests me as much as myself.

The world has found lenses on its nose without knowing whom to thank