Poetry and painting are done in the same way you make love; it's an exchange of blood, a total embrace - without caution, without any thought of protecting yourself.

The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later.

You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at the picture for a second and think of it all your life.

A simple line painted with the brush can lead to freedom and happiness.

More important than a work of art itself is what it will sow. Art can die, a painting can disappear. What counts is the seed.

To gain freedom is to gain simplicity.

If you have any notion of where you are going, you will never get anywhere.

When I stand before a canvas, I never know what I'll do, and I am the first one surprised at what comes out.

What I am seeking... is a motionless movement, something equivalent to what is called the eloquence of silence.

I think of my studio as a vegetable garden, where things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. You have to graft. You have to water.

For me an object is something living. This cigarette or this box of matches contains a secret life much more intense than that of certain human beings.

Your real personality identity is not an option, it is the foundation for your happiness and health.

Fear echoes your self-defined limitations, not your actual ones. To change your self-image, you must face what scares you.

the man who is pure, and who dares, does all things.

I would rather know than believe.

You pass people on the street, some are for you, some are not.

It is a great pity when the one who should be the head figure is a mere figure head.

The waterfront without the Ferry Tower would be like a birthday cake without a candle.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

There ain't anything that is so interesting to look at as a place that a book has talked about.

The virtue of Yankee upbringing spiritually speaking is of more downright value to me than any past heritages.