From the moment of my birth, the angels of anxiety, worry, and death stood at my side, followed me out when I played, followed me in the sun of springtime and in the glories of summer. They stood at my side in the evening when I closed my eyes, and intimidated me with death, hell, and eternal damnation.

In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color

My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively religious—to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I inherited the seeds of madness. The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born.

By painting colors and lines and forms seen in quickened mood I was seeking to make this mood vibrate as a phonograph does. This was the origin of the paintings in The Frieze of Life.

I should have considered it wrong to have finished the Frieze before the room for its accommodation and the funds for its completion were available.

There is a battle that goes on between men and women. Many people call it love.

I sense a scream passing through nature. I painted ... the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked.