I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous infinite scream of nature.

My breakthrough came very late in life, really only starting when I was 50...I had the strength for new deeds and ideas.

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.

I don’t believe in an art that is not born out of man’s need to open his heart.

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

I find it difficult to imagine an afterlife, such as Christians, or at any rate many religious people, conceive it, believing that the conversations with relatives and friends interrupted here on earth will be continued in the hereafter.

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