The Minimalists are idealist. They want to minimise themselves in favour of the ideal. But I just can't. You see, my paintings are not cool. ... I'm very careful not to have ideas, because they're inaccurate.

Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind.

I would like my work to be recognized as being in the classical tradition (Coptic, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese), as representing the Ideal in the mind. Classical art cannot possibly be eclectic. One must see the ideal in one's own mind. It is like a memory -- an awareness -of perfection.

People who look at my painting say that it makes them happy, like the feeling when you wake up in the morning. And happiness is the goal, isn't it?

I once taught art to adults in a night course. I had a woman who painted her back yard, and she said it was the first time she had ever really looked at it. I think everyone sees beauty. Art is a way to respond.

Beauty and happiness and life are all the same and they are pervasive, unattached and abstract and they are our only concern. They are immeasurable, completely lacking in substance. They are perfect and sublime. This is the subject matter of art.

Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track, I want to say that they are not what they seem to be. I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistakes, all that seems like error

is not error; and it all has to be done. That which seems like a false step is the next step.

Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life.

The Minimalists are idealist. They want to minimize themselves in favor of the ideal... But I just can't. You see, my paintings are not cool.

When you look in your mind you find it covered with a lot of rubbishy thoughts. You have to penetrate these and hear what your mind is telling you to do. Such work is original work.

When I first made a grid, I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees, and then a grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, 'This is my vision.'

You can't make a perfect painting. We can see perfection in our minds. But we can't make a perfect painting.

Doing what you were born to do… That's the way to be happy.

My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They're just horizontal lines.

My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They're just horizontal lines. There's not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think.

That which takes us by surprise-moments of happiness-that is inspiration.

Pollock was terrific. I think he freed himself of all kinds of worry about this world. Ran around and dripped, and then he managed to express ecstasy.

The enormous pitfall is devotion to oneself instead of to life. All works that are self-devoted are absolutely ineffective.

I think everyone is born 100 percent ego, and after that it's just adjustment.

Happiness is being on the beam with life -- to feel the pull of life.