Bend color names which should be made of neon or copper…

Early on I was very involved with the notion of the painting as an object and tended to attack that idea from different directions.

— Jasper Johns

Make something, a kind of object, which as it changes or falls apart (dies as it were) or increases in its parts (grows as…

— Jasper Johns

In my early work, I tried to hide my personality, my psychological state, my emotions. This was partly due to my feelings about myself…

— Jasper Johns

I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without…

— Jasper Johns

I have meant what I have done. Or I have often meant what I have done. Or I have sometimes meant what I have…

— Jasper Johns

Art as a fantasy has been one of my earliest experiences. I suppose a lot of my childhood was a fantasy that involved getting…

— Jasper Johns

I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had…

— Jasper Johns

Sometime during the mid-50s I said, 'I am an artist.' Before that, for many years, I had said, 'I'm going to be an artist.'…

— Jasper Johns

That's what painting does; it organizes vision in a certain way or suggests that certain things be paid attention to and certain other things…

— 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

I tend to like things that already exist.

— Jasper Johns

My experience with life is that it's very fragmented. In one place certain kinds of thing occur, and in another place a different kind…

— Jasper Johns

I never wish for critics.

— Jasper Johns

Art is either a complaint or appeasement.

— Jasper Johns

I love drawings, so I've always enjoyed making drawings that exist on their own.

— Jasper Johns