Unlike the expressionists, I have never been interested in renewing the world through the vehicle of art.

A painter doesn't need any talent. In fact, it's better not to have it.

I don't like things that can be reproduced. Wood isn't important in itself but rather in the fact that objects made in it are unique, simple, unpretentious.

All German painters have a neurosis with Germany's past: war, the postwar period most of all, East Germany. I addressed all of this in a deep depression and under great pressure. My paintings are battles, if you will.

I did not always trust my teachers, because I found them too weak. I was looking for something that could take me in a new direction, for things that I could admire. And because it was so hard to find this, I became a sort of outsider. That's why I began to identify with the insane, "outsider" artists.

I paint German artists whom I admire. I paint their pictures, their work as painters, and their portraits too. But oddly enough, each of these portraits ends up as a picture of a woman with blonde hair. I myself have never been able to work out why this happens.

I have always had the feeling that other people are too stupid to discover interesting things. That's why I do it myself. I think of collecting as a way to show that I understand what's important better than others do.