. . . by the time I was six years old, my mother and father, although they were giving [me] materials with which to work, at the same time, they were telling me that I shouldn’t be an artist and knowing how minds work, I’m sure that that in itself was a goad to me. To be told that I shouldn’t become an artist gave me some incentive to become one.
— Robert Indiana
Arthur C. Carr, "The Reminiscences of Robert Indiana," New York, November 1965, Arthur C. Carr papers; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library, pp. 140–41.