"To be inspired. That is the thing. to be possessed; to be bewitched. To be obsessed. That is the thing. To be inspired."

"Let the poet dream his dreams. Yet, the poet must look at the world; must enter into other men's lives; must look at …"

"I think when a man first discovers that two and two is four, there is 'beauty' in that; and we can see why. But if pe…"

"The eye seems to be responding to something living."

"As for the subject matter in my painting...it is very often an incidental thing in the background, elusive and unclea…"

"Contact with other artists has always been of great importance to me. When the artists I know best used to meet.. ..t…"

"There is always an unconscious collaboration among artists.. ..the artist who imagine himself a Robinson Crusoe is ei…"

"Its decadence, satiety, and languor [of Roman civilization] interested me. And I kept looking and returning to their …"

"The large gray spiked form rising from the bottom of the picture is to me the symbol of death and ruin. And finally t…"

"Today it's possible to paint one canvas with the calmness of an ancient Greek and the next with the anxiety of a Van …"