Without anxiety and illness I would have been like a ship without a rudder.

Through my art I have tried to explain my life and its meaning. I have also intended to help others to clarify their lives.

I do not paint what I see, but what I saw.

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

Painting picture by picture, I followed the impressions my eye took in at heightened moments. I painted only memories, adding nothing, no details that I did not see. Hence the simplicity of the paintings, their emptiness.

The notes I have made are not a diary in the ordinary sense, but partly lengthy records of my spiritual experiences, and partly poems in prose.