To be an artist, one must . . . never shirk from the truth as he understands it, never withdraw from life

I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil. Great art is like a tree, which grows in a particular place and has a trunk, leaves, blossoms, boughs, fruit, and roots of its own. The more native art is, the more it belongs to the entire world, because taste is rooted in nature. When art is true, it is one with nature. This is the secret of primitive art and also of the art of the mastersMichelangelo, Czanne, Seurat, and Renoir. The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican.

The artist must try to raise the level of taste of the masses, not debase himself to the level of unformed and impoverished taste.

Only the work of art itself can raise the standard of taste.

Never before had a woman put such agonizing poetry on canvas as Frida did

I've never believed in God, but I believe in Picasso.

Through her paintings, she breaks all the taboos of the woman's body and of female sexuality.