Georgia O'Keeffe

“Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.”

“The unexplainable thing in nature that makes me feel the world is big fat beyond my understanding – to understand maybe by trying to put it into form. To find the feeling of infinity on the horizon line or just over the next hill.”

“RE: Lake George from a book by Lord. That's all I know."There is something so perfect about the mountains and the lake and the trees.... sometimes I want to tear it all to pieces”

“I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see—and I don't.”

“I wish people were all trees and I think I could enjoy them then.”

“You are one of my nicest thoughts.”

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

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment.”

“I got half-a-dozen paintings from that shattered plate.”

“To create one's own world takes courage.”

“One day a hummingbird flew in--It fluttered against the window til I got it down where I could reach it with an open umbrella----When I had it in my hand it was so small I couldn't believe I had it--but I could feel the intense life--so intense and so tiny--...You were like the humming bird to me...And I am rather inclined to feel that you and I know the best part of one another without spending much time together----It is not that I fear the knowing--It is that I am at this moment willing to let you be what you are to me--it is beautiful and pure and very intensely alive.”

“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'm frightened all the time. But I never let it stop me. Never!”

“One cannot be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love America and then work.”

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.”

“I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught. ”

“I hate flowers.”

“Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”

“I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to ... I found that 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 can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.”