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The painter must enclose himself within his work; he must respond not with words, but with paintings.

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.

Artists talk in 'art speak.'

Painters hate having to explain what their work is about. They always say, 'It's whatever you want it to be' - because I think that's their intention, to connect with each person's subconscious, and not to try and dictate.

With a painter's temperament, all that's needed are the means of expression sufficient to be intelligible to the wide public.

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

Today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within.

How are we going to make painters by lecturing to them? We are going to make questioners, doubters, and talkers. We are going to make painters by painting ourselves, and by showing the paintings of others. By working frankly from our convictions, we are going to make them work frankly from theirs.

The paintings may communicate even better because people are lazy and they can look at a painting with less effort than they can read a poem.

Abstract painting seeks to be a pure pictorial language, and thus attempts to escape the essential impurity of all languages: the recourse to signs or forms that have meanings shared by everyone.