-There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
-I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
-Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
-There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
I should've read further before making such a presupposed statement on your discussion Nick, and didn't know it was inspired from Picasso...but nonetheless, I'll counter this first quote of Jaymie's with an early 20th century favored quote from a poem that inspired me not so long ago back in high school ~
"a poem should not mean, but be" - Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish