Do what your inner soul tells you to do, regardless of any money or success it will bring you.

- Etel Adnan

Colours exist for me as entities in themselves, as metaphysical beings.

- Etel Adnan

I always had a few people who liked what I did, and that was enough.

- Etel Adnan

I didn't want to read French or write it; it was like a boycott, a rejection.

- Etel Adnan

I love Nicolas de Stael particularly, and my work can remind people of him. But looked at attentively, our works are not similar at all.

- Etel Adnan

I write what I see; I paint what I am.

- Etel Adnan

Mount Tamalpais became my house. For Cezanne, Sainte-Victoire was no longer a mountain. It was an absolute. It was painting.

- Etel Adnan

Once I put down a color, I never cover it up. If you are born a musician, why become a banker?

- Etel Adnan

We were taught to think that Paris was the center of the universe.

- Etel Adnan

My writing and my paintings do not have a direct connection in my mind. But I am sure they influence each other in the measure that everything we do is linked to whatever we are, which includes whatever we have done or are doing.

- Etel Adnan

Places are part of nature, of the bigger picture. We are interrelated. When we contemplate them in their own right, they can sometimes change our lives; they can become spiritual experiences.

- Etel Adnan

Usually, I am a compulsive person, and I need - sometimes urgently - to paint... Painting is close to poetry, is a kind of poetry expressed visually. It has to be spontaneous, rapid - at least in my case.

- Etel Adnan