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The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself.

By making pictures, you learn the many different properties of photography. I use those properties differently than, say, an advertising agency would, but we're both operating in the same reality. A face painted by Picasso occupies the same reality as a portrait by Stieglitz.

The artist is an interpreter of Nature. People learn to love Nature through pictures. To the artist, nothing is in vain; nothing beneath his notice. If he is great enough, he will exalt every subject which he treats.

A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure.

I collect old portraits. They're all just interesting pictures of people, and you just kind of wonder who they were and what they were. There's a guy - I don't know who he is, but he's wearing a suit. He's got his arms folded, and he looks like he sold insurance or something. I'm just wondering why someone painted him.

I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.

A painting is like a man. If you can live without it, then there isn't much point in having it.

No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.

To paint is a possessing rather than a picturing.