A Canvas Is Never Empty.

Screwing Things Up Is A Virtue. Being Correct Is Never The Point. I Have An Almost Fanatically Correct Assistant, And By The Time She Re-spells My Words And Corrects My Punctuation, I Can't Read What I Wrote. Being Right Can Stop All The Momentum Of A Very Interesting Idea.

And Also The New Excitement And Variety Of Ways That The Abstract Expressionists Were Applying Paint. You Could Put It On As Though It Were Colored Air And It Would Be Painting.

This Was My First Encounter With Art As Art (he Saw 'pinky' Painted By Sir Thomas Lawrence And 'the Blue Boy" Painted By Thomas Gainborough).. ..somebody Actually Made Those Paintings.. ..(it) Was The First Time I Realized You Could Be An Artist.

You Begin With The Possibilities Of The Material.

You Have To Have The Time To Feel Sorry For Yourself In Order To Be A Good Abstract Expressionist.