Georgia O'Keeffe quotes

Georgia O'Keeffe was an influential American artist known for her distinctive paintings of flowers, skyscrapers, and southwestern landscapes. Her bold use of color and innovative compositions made her a pioneer of modern American art. She is often called the "Mother of American modernism" and remains an inspiration for generations of artists. Here are 84 of her quotes:

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.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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

Georgia O'Keeffe

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.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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

Georgia O'Keeffe

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

Georgia O'Keeffe

Where I was born and where and how l have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should of interest.

Georgia O'Keeffe

I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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

Georgia O'Keeffe

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.

Georgia O'Keeffe

I don't really know where I got my artists idea. The scraps of what I remember do not explain to me where it came from. I only know that by this time [her eight grade's year] it was definitely settled in my mind.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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

Georgia O'Keeffe

I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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

Georgia O'Keeffe

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

Georgia O'Keeffe

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.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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

Georgia O'Keeffe

I wish people were all trees and I think I could enjoy them then.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Color is one of the great things in the world that makes life worth living to me and as I have come to think of painting it is my efforts to create an equivalent with paint color for the world, life as I see it.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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

Georgia O'Keeffe

I find that I have painted my life, things happening in my life - without knowing. After painting the shell and shingle many times, I did a misty landscape of the mountain across the lake, and the mountain became the shape of the shingle - the mountain I saw out my window, the shingle on the table in my room. I did not notice that they were alike for a long time after they were painted.

Georgia O'Keeffe