I used to have a speech impediment when I was young, explains Ellsworth Kelly, I'm not a quick thinker. there's always been a gap between what I'm saying and what I'm thinking. I hate to read what I've said written down. I'm slow. so I find it difficult watching films, for example. the tv. everything's so fast. I want to look. I want time. time to me is very important. watching the light change in that doorway over there in the past hour, for instance. I want my painting to be like that.. the shadow along the top is very beautiful.

Is he a buddhist? I'm not a believer. I used to meditate when I was a kid. I met a woman after I got out of the army. she was quite a woman. she was a faith healer, and I believed in her. she cured my terrible impediment in a week.

we are ghosts, the british abstract painter John Hoyland remembers Kelly telling him once. artists are ghosts. we're there, but nobody knows where we are.

I said that? Kelly says. Did I say that?