I felt as if there were invisible threads connecting us - I felt the invisible strands of her hair still winding around me - and thus as she disappeared completely beyond the sea - I still felt it, felt the pain where my heart was bleeding - because the threads could not be severed.

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.

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

My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder. My art is grounded in reflections over being different from others. My sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art. I want to keep those sufferings

I build a kind of wall between myself and t he model so that I can paint in peace behind it. Otherwise, she might say something that confuses and distracts me.

The rich man who gives, steals twice over. First he steals the money and then the hearts of men.

I was walking along a road one evening – on one side lay the city, and below me was the fjord. The sun went down – the clouds were stained red, as if with blood. I felt as though the whole of nature was screaming – it seemed as though I could hear a scream. I painted that picture, painting the clouds like real blood. The colours screamed.