It is better to have a good painting with ten holes than ten bad paintings without any holes.

To die is as if one's eyes had been put out and one cannot see anything any more. Perhaps it is like being shut in a cellar. One is abandoned by all. They have slammed the door and are gone. One does not see anything and notices only the damp smell of putrefaction.

Colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas.

Death is pitch-dark, but colors are light. To be a painter, one must work with rays of light.

I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

The viewers must come to understand the sacredness of painting, so they will remove their hats as if they were in church.

This kind of painting with its large frames is a bourgeois drawing-room art. It is an art dealer's art-and that came in after the civil wars following the French Revolution.