Joan Mitchell

"I might get an idea sitting looking at the river, or something, or a specific.. ..Yeess. I'm sure, yes, I'm sure it influences me in terms of green and gray and color and.. .I mean, New York light is …"

"And I came .. .It was just after the war and I thought it was a little early to get over there . So I spent the winter under the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Brooklyn side, living with Barney Rosset, and I…"

"Mitchell, 1960-61: 'Rock Bottom', paintingI don't make drips purposely. This drip business is a pile of shit. If I see them, I take them out like cleaning the house."

"I've always been told that I was a painter's painter.. .What does that mean?.. .That painters like my painting and the big wide world overlooks it, I suppose?.. .Well, I know.. .To me, it would have m…"

"Light is something very special. It has nothing to do with white. Either you see it or you don't. de la Tour doesn't have light; Monet hasn't any light. Matisse, Goya, Chardin, Van Gogh, Sam Francis, …"

"Pop Art, Op Art, Flop Art and Slop Art.. .I fall into the last two categories ."

"I'm trying to remember what I felt about a certain cypress tree and I feel if I remember it, it will last me quite a long life."

"It's death. It's hospitals. It's my terrible nurses. You can add in Melville, Moby Dick a chapter on white. White is absolute horror. It is just the worst."