The conscience of an artist worthy of the name is like an incurable disease which causes him endless torment but occasionally fills him with silent joy.
Every museum is full of nice things. That's the opposite of before. It was important things or serious things. Now we have interesting things.
I'm still very sure that painting is one of the most basic human capacities, like dancing and singing, that make sense, that stay with us, as something human.
When I begin, theoretically and practically I can smear anything I want on the canvas. Then there's a condition I have to react to, by changing it or destroying it.
I don't think I can do this - painting under observation. It's the worst thing there is, worse than being in the hospital.
I believe that art has a kind of rightness, as in music, when we hear whether or not a note is false
We would sift through every inch of what it was that worked, or if it didn't, and wonder what was effective in it, in terms of paint, the subject matter, the size, the drawing.
Matisse was very clear about saying that you have to blow your own trumpet and explain yourself, which I think has been slightly forgotten.
I fell through a crack for years. Historically, I am a nothing because I fit in no category. I can only be me.
I've never looked at a suburban building as being a minor building and an urban building as being a major building.
A young woman has young claws, well sharpened. If she has character, that is. And if she hasn't so much the worse for you.
I feel the need of attaining the maximum of intensity with the minimum of means. It is this which has led me to give my painting a character of even greater bareness.
I'm irresponsible to my career in order to paint. Because painting is obsessive. I forget to eat. I forget to sleep.
Never turn down a job because you think it's too small; you don't know where it can lead.
It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.
'Form follows function' comes with so much baggage. It's a worthless phrase because you'll never take it for what it means.
A person with normal eyesight would have nothing to know in the way of 'Impressionism' unless he were in a blinding light or in the dusk or dark.
I was told when I went for a life-insurance exam when I was 18 that I was not likely to live past 50, so I refused to pay the premium.
If people had told me that I would have the stamina to conduct 'Ring Cycles,' I would have been amazed. I still am.
The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.
US presidents can make all the commitments and declarations they want until they are blue in the face, in the Muslim world they will always be perceived as partisan.
