Gradually it dawned on me that I was painting my own inner emotions. Those children were asking: "Why are we here? What is life all about? Why is the… - Margaret Keane

Children do have big eyes. When I'm doing a portrait, the eyes are the most expressive part of the face. And they just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

I had just announced for the first time publicly on a radio show in San Francisco that I had done all the Keane paintings and not my ex-husband. And this, um, Bill Flang of the San Francisco Examiner thought that Walter and I should appear in Union Square and have a paint-off to decide who had done the paintings, since I was—said that I had done them. So, he arranged it, and LIFE magazine as there and all the different newspapers and t.v. stations and they, uh—some of them in the audience played "High Noon"—[laughs] And, of course, Walter didn't show up.

M, you see, is four, and D is four too, and H is eight, and four and four and eight are sixteen, which is made up of one and six, which make seven—my number.