Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.

I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always a slight touch of mystery in my paintings.

Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

The best way to begin is to say: 'Balthus is a painter of whom nothing is known. And now let us have a look at the paintings'.

If you speak of beauty, you are at once suspected of...kitsch.

The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century.

One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.