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"When I am in a painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc, because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well."

"When I am painting I have a general notion as to what I am about. I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident."

"New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements ... the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture."

[A canvas is] "an arena in which to act."

"Every good artist paints what he is."

"I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you're painting out of your unconscious, figures are bound to emerge."

"The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating."

"I don't work from drawings. I don't make sketches and drawings and colour sketches into a final painting."

"On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting."

"Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was."

"Today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within."

"The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art."

"It [abstract art] should be enjoyed just as music is enjoyed – after a while you may like it or you may not."

In response to the question "How do you know when you're finished?", Pollock replied "How do you know when you're finished making love?"