I didn't know what to expect from a famous movie star; maybe that he'd be sort of stuck-up, you know. But not Gary Cooper. He horsed around so much... that I had a hard time painting him.

The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they're always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.

My best efforts were some modern things that looked like very lousy Matisses. Thank God I had the sense to realize they were lousy, and leave Paris.

I paint life as I would like it to be.

Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative.

I just wanted to do something important.

No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He's got to put all his talent and feeling into them!

I'll never have enough time to paint all the pictures I'd like to.

If a picture wasn't going very well, I'd put a puppy in it.

The story is the first thing and the last thing.

The view of life I communicate in my pictures excludes the sordid and ugly. I paint life as I would like it to be.

The mind has a powerful way of attracting things that are in harmony with it, good and bad.

Life is a playground and a laboratory

I suspect that much of life is like that. We seldom see what is closest to our eyes.

If you play it safe, middle of the road with all the right notes, you might win. If you are unique and have too much personality, you might easily score a '0' in competition.

It is exciting to work with students thinking about issues of the day, from closing the achievement gap to finding a cure for cancer.

The ability to understand people is a choice.

Paradoxically, the problems of politics often arise not in the form of a problem of scarcity, but as one of abundance.

Don't eat anything incapable of rotting.

I’m really alive when I’m on stage.

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty. [Referring to the theory that over-production caused the Depression]