I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.

What is spiritual experience? A snowflake melting, a bee sucking honey, a fat man at a traffic light. Trivia.

When the eye wakes up to see again, it suddenly stops taking anything for granted.

It is in order to really see, to see ever deeper, ever more intensely, hence to be fully aware and alive, that I draw what the Chinese call 'The Ten Thousand Things' around me. Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world. I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.

We do a lot of looking: we look through lenses, telescopes, television tubes... Our looking is perfected every day, but we see less and less.

Merely looking at the world around us is immensely different from seeing it.

I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.