Top 139 Quotes & Sayings by Georgia O'Keeffe

You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.

I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.

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.

Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue - that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man's destruction is finished.

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.

Marks on paper are free - free speech - press - pictures all go together I suppose.

I don't very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.

I hate flowers - I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move.

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree.

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

It was all so far away - there was quiet and an untouched feel to the country and I could work as I pleased.

One can't paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.

I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality, I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say in paint.

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 believe I would rather have Stieglitz like something - anything I had done - than anyone else I know.

It was in the 1920s, when nobody had time to reflect, that I saw a still-life painting with a flower that was perfectly exquisite, but so small you really could not appreciate it.

The days you work are the best days.

Anyone who doesn't feel the crosses simply doesn't get that country.

I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.

To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.

Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression. It is so spontaneous. And after singing, I think the violin. Since I cannot sing, I paint.

I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

One can not 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.

I long ago came to the conclusion that even if I could put down accurately the thing I saw and enjoyed, it would not give the observer the kind of feeling it gave me. I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at-not copy it.

When people read erotic symbols into my painting, they're really thinking about their own affairs.

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 meaning of a word - to me - is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words.

I decided to accept as true my own thinking.

I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary--you're happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.

To make your unknown known - that's the important thing.

Fill a space in a beautiful way.

It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.

I don't see why we ever think of what others think of what we do – no matter who they are. Isn't it enough just to express yourself?

I look at my work and make up my mind about it. After that, neither flattery nor criticism matters to me.

You are one of my nicest thoughts.

Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.

Someone else's vision will never be as good as your own vision of your self. Live and die with it 'cause in the end it's all you have. Lose it and you lose yourself and everything else. I should have listened to myself.

I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.

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

So I said to myself-I'll paint what I see-what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it-I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

God told me if I painted that mountain enough, I could have it.

Artists and religionists are never far apart, they go to the sources of revelation for what they choose to experience and what they report is the degree of their experiences. Intellect wishes to arrange — intuition wishes to accept.

I've been afraid every single day of my life, but I've gone ahead and done it anyway.

It always seems to me that so few people live - they just seem to exist and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't live always - til we die physically.

I want real things ... music that makes holes in the sky.

The men liked to put me down as the best woman painter. I think I'm one of the best painters.

Imagination makes you see all sorts of things.

If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment.

Happiness goes like the wind, but what is interesting stays.

A week ago it was the mountains I thought the most wonderful, and today it's the plains. I guess it's the feeling of bigness in both that carries me away.

A flower touches everyone's heart.

Dearest - my body is simply crazy with wanting you - If you don't come tomorrow - I don't see how I can wait for you - I wonder if your body wants mine the way mine wants yours - the kisses - the hotness - the wetness - all melting together - the being held so tight that it hurts - the strangle and the struggle.

Filling a space in a beautiful way - that is what art means to me.

I decided to start anew-to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking. This was one of the best times of my life. There was no one around to look at what I was doing, no one interested, no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working into my own, unknown-no one to satisfy but myself. I began with charcoal and paper and decided not to use any color until it was impossible to do what I wanted to do in black and white. I believe it was June before I needed blue.

My painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me.