The important thing is that Clyff Still – you know his work? – and Rothko, and I – we've changed the nature of painting... I don't mean there aren't any other good painters. Bill [Willem the Kooning] is a good painter, but he's a 'French' painter [Pollock meant: a French-abstract style]. I told him so, the last time I saw him after his last show,... all those pictures in his last show start with an image. You can see it even though he's covered it up, or tried to.... Style – that's the French part of it. He has to cover it up with style..

In an interview (1956); published in Conversations with Artists, by Seldon Rodman, New York, Capricorn Books, 1961, pp. 84-85