Georgia O'Keeffe

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way — things I had no words for.

I have things in my head that are not like what anyone taught me — shapes and ideas so near to me,so natural to my way of being and thinking.

I believe I would rather have Stieglitz like something - anything I had done - than anyone else I know.

I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

I don't very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.

I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.

I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.

I hate flowers - I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move.

I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality, I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say in paint.

I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree.

I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.

I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.