You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink read more

You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.

My mother said to me, "If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, read more

My mother said to me, "If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope." Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

Anyone who says you can't see a thought simply doesn't know art.

Anyone who says you can't see a thought simply doesn't know art.

Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.

Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.

For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.

For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.

Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.

Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind read more

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.

Rice Krispies happens to be one of my favorite junk foods, just as I regard Michener as superior among junk read more

Rice Krispies happens to be one of my favorite junk foods, just as I regard Michener as superior among junk writers.

Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack read more

Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is, quite spectacularly I think, art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. It is art which will take the great human themes --love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself --and render them fully human. It may also, though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme, one as great and as rich as those others --should we call it "joy"?.