Agnes Denes

People always understand everything in retrospect.

— Agnes Denes

Thinking has an understructure and underpinnings.

— Agnes Denes

I never considered myself a performance artist.

— Agnes Denes

People don't hurt what they love.

— Agnes Denes

Most wonderful things are unconscious.

— Agnes Denes

My work is about helping humanity.

— Agnes Denes

I'm mostly self-taught. I didn't learn much in school.

— Agnes Denes

There's no precedent for women philosophers and there's no precedence for most of the things I did.

— Agnes Denes

We use up words as we use up images. We use up everything, and that's good, because it makes us grow.

— Agnes Denes

When I'm gone, you'll be sitting in a cafe and say, "Do you remember Agnes?"

— Agnes Denes

I hate to put tags on things, because tags change, and they change with the requirements made on them.

— Agnes Denes

I had drawings that were the first time that mathematics was put into visual form.

— Agnes Denes

I wish I didn't have daily problems to deal with, so that I could just concentrate on learning more, every single day.

— Agnes Denes

If I like a person, I like them. I may like the art and not like the person.

— Agnes Denes

People are always fighting reality until it's pushed down their throats.

— Agnes Denes

The tree is made by nature, mathematics by people. And combining the two is creating this beautiful alliance between humanity and nature.…

— Agnes Denes

Every one of my works, when I'm looking back, becomes some kind of solution, or something to concentrate on. Something to pay…

— Agnes Denes

I went through about six or seven painting methods just to see what I didn't want to do. And then I got…

— Agnes Denes

Society likes to file you away, put you in this or that category. And I never fit any category. Maybe that's why…

— Agnes Denes

I study what I work with. I studied all these different fields of science that I needed for my work. I studied…

— Agnes Denes

Public art existed all along, but ecological art just naturally grew out of my thinking and writings in that area for years.…

— Agnes Denes

If I could relive my life, what I would do is work with scientists. But not one scientist, because they're locked into…

— Agnes Denes

Words are changing. I find that old expressions are outdated, so when I write something, I try to find a new expression…

— Agnes Denes

People have too many problems during the day; they don't want to think.

— Agnes Denes

I always was alone. And I'm alone today. It's fine. I have lots of friends, but not in terms of working together.

— Agnes Denes

Philosophy gets its ugly head into everything, but I don't think we live philosophy anymore. It's done.

— Agnes Denes

What I did for my last act as a painter, if you call me a painter, was to photograph the weave of…

— Agnes Denes

Pattern-finding is the purpose of the mind and the construct of the universe. There are an infinite number of patterns, some of…

— Agnes Denes

One thing that's paramount in my life is that I am alone. I'm a loner. And yet I have many friends and…

— Agnes Denes

Anything important has to be almost invisible. And underrated. So the understructure should be underrated, but strong enough to hold the earth.

— Agnes Denes