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

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.

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.

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

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.

The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.

...with you, I find peace from pain - You are gentle and healing like the landscape—like rain...

Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you're positive, good things happen.

The driver on the highway is safe not when He reads the signs, but when He obeys them.

What a sense of possession, of confidence, it gave one to have pockets, to shove one's fists into them, as if in simply owning pockets one owned riches, owned independence.

The causes of illusions are not pretty to discover. They're either vicious or tragic.

Gentlemen prefer blondes, but take what they can get.

I think that you should just create if you have the urge to create. There's a lot of other careers you can pursue to seek attention. If people want validation, there are other ways to get that.

Quit worrying about what other people think and just be who God made you to be. If you will run your race, God will take care of your critics.

There's a chance that the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to you. Don't give up on him.