Art really is something very difficult. It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand. It is difficult to work out what is art and what is not art.

But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland.

Because of my Calvinistic upbringing, I was trained to think that what you do has to have a purpose.

I believe art has to take responsibility but it should not give up being art.

I am against the idea of the end, that everything culminates in paradise or judgment.

If I do something that depresses, it's not because I'm depressed, but because political life and history is depressing.

As an artist you have to find something that deeply interests you. It's not enough to make art that is about art, to look at Matisse and Picasso and say, how can I paint like them? You have to be obsessed by something that can't come out in any other way, then the other things - the skill and technique - will follow.