I tend to like things that already exist.

- Jasper Johns

When something is new to us, we treat it as an experience. We feel that our senses are awake and clear. We are alive.

- Jasper Johns

There may or may not be an idea, and the meaning may just be that the painting exists.

- Jasper Johns

One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it.

- Jasper Johns

To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.

- Jasper Johns

My work is largely concerned with relations between seeing and knowing, seeing and saying, seeing and believing.

- Jasper Johns

I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter – that would be my life.

- Jasper Johns

As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may…

- Jasper Johns

It's simple, you just take something and do something to it, and then do something else to it. Keep doing this, and pretty soon you've got something.

- Jasper Johns