In the beginning I drew and painted from nature in order to know her. Then later, only to fall under her spell. And today, to let her mirror my thoug…

- William Baziotes

There is always an unconscious collaboration among artists.. ..the artist who imagine himself a Robinson Crusoe is either a primitive or a fool.

- William Baziotes

It is the mysterious that I love in painting. It is the stillness and the silence. I want my pictures to take effect very slowly, to obsess and to ha…

- William Baziotes

Let the poet dream his dreams. Yet, the poet must look at the world; must enter into other men's lives; must look at the earth and the sky, must exam…

- William Baziotes

I kept.. ..returning to the (ancient Roman) wall paintings with their veiled melancholy and elegant plasticity.

- William Baziotes

The large gray spiked form rising from the bottom of the picture is to me the symbol of death and ruin. And finally the black ovoid form is the symbo…

- William Baziotes

Whereas certain people start with a recollection or an experience and paint that experience, to some of us the act of doing is the experience; so tha…

- William Baziotes

One can begin a picture and carry it through and stop it and do nothing about the title at all.

- William Baziotes

I think when a man first discovers that two and two is four, there is 'beauty' in that; and we can see why. But if people stand and look at the moon …

- William Baziotes