Georgia O'Keeffe

I have always been true to myself.

I don't want to be a symbol. I want to be a painter.

I have always been a solitary person.

I don't want to be a part of the past. I want to be a part of the future.

I have been forty years getting this thing to look like that!

I often think old women are more interesting than old men.

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.

The men liked to make me into a pretty little thing. I didn't want to be a pretty little thing.

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

I wish people were all to be as simple as grass, they will be then free.

I know I can't paint a flower. I can't paint the sun on the desert on a bright summer morning... but maybe I can give you the idea of it.

I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is a fleeting thing. This gives you a sense of not striving for that, but striving for a good life. Maybe that is the best you can hope for.

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.

I have always been very independent, and I have always done what I wanted to do.

Singing has always seemed to me a very foolish thing to do. I like to keep my mouth shut.

I don't think I'm any different from anybody else. I just happen to be an artist.

I am not a woman. I am an artist.

I have been surprised over and over again to find how different my work looks to different people.

I sometimes think I'm half mad with the desire for something I don't possess.

The days were so full of what I was doing and what I was seeing that I didn't think about anything else.