The form is always the measure of the obsession.

I've been fifty thousand times to the Louvre. I have copied everything in drawing, trying to understand.

It is impossible to do a thing the way I see it because the closer I get the more differently I see.

In every work of art the subject is primordial, whether the artist knows it or not. The measure of the formal qualities is only a sign of the measure of the artist's obsession with his subject; the form is always in proportion to the obsession.

The more I work, the more I see things differently, that is, everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful. The closer I come, the grander it is, the more remote it is.

I paint and sculpt to get a grip on reality... to protect myself.

I've tried doing so, for it was never my intention to paint only with gray. But in the course of my work I have eliminated one color after another, and what has remained is gray, gray, gray!