Painting is a self-disciplined activity that you have to learn by yourself.

You should always respect what you are and your culture because if your art is going to mean anything, that is where it comes from.

When I conjure these memories, they are of the present to me, because after all, the artist is a kind of enchanter in time.

What I've attempted to do is establish a world through art in which the validity of my Negro experience could live and make its own logic.

The artist has to be something like a whale swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs.

Black art has always existed. It just hasn't been looked for in the right places.

Art is the soul of a people.

The artist confronts chaos. The whole thing of art is, how do you organize chaos?

Sometimes the mind relives things very clearly for us...There are roads out of secret places within us along which we all must move as we go to touch others.

You don't paint what you see, you paint what you feel.

My purpose is to paint the life of my people as I know it.

Judging a person's maturity by the number of years they've lived is misleading. This is because people mature at different rates.

Once I could imagine my soulI could imagine my death.When I imagined my deathmy soul died. ThisI remember clearly.My body persisted.Not thrived, but persisted.Why I do not know.

When you say you’re a fan of the gore, what do you mean?”“The all supernatural bunch, love. The scarier the merrier.

Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me ... I should like to find a genuine loophole.

There have been many Presidents of the United States and the roll will be indefinitely extended. We have had a number of brilliant soldiers, but only one great general.

My intention is to make interesting photographs. That's it, in the end. I don't make it up. Let's say it's a world I never made. That's what was there to deal with.

Do not discuss the religious matters with people; do not waste your valuable time to discuss the untruth! Your time is short; spend it for the science and the art!

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists.

We work really hard never to get confused with what we know from what we think or hope or wish.

Truth is hidden by the golden veil of the mundane. Pierce through this thin glittering sheath and know that you are the Sun