Without fear and illness, I could never have accomplished all I have

What is art? Art grows from joy and sorrow, but mostly from sorrow. It grows from human lives.

Youth must go ahead and prosper. These young painters are all very talented people, but they all paint frescoes.

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.

Your face encompasses the beauty of the whole earth. Your lips, as red as ripening fruit, gently part as if in pain. It is the smile of a corpse. Now the hand of death touches life. The chain is forged that links the thousand families that are dead to the thousand generations to come.

Without fear and disease, my life would be like a boat without oars.

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