You have to have a high conception, not of what you are doing, but of what you may do one day: without that, there's no point in working.

There is love, and there is work; and we have only one heart.

The artist does not draw what he sees, but what he must make others see. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things. A picture is first of all a product of the imagination of the artist; it must never be a copy. If then two or three natural accents can be added, obviously no harm is done. The air we see in the paintings of the old masters is never the air we breathe.

There is no such thing as Intelligence; one has intelligence of this or that. One must have intelligence only for what one is doing.

What is certain is that setting a piece of nature in place and drawing it are two very different things.

A picture is first of all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy.

Only two of my personalities are schizophrenic, but one of them is paranoid and the other one is out to get him. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.