For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.

In these gaudy times, we think we will shortly reach the point where everything is known, but the fact is we are ignoring the essential, which is love of all living things, of all beauty both visible and hidden.

For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.

The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.

Nothing is old, nothing is new, save the light of grace underneath which beats a human heart. The way of feeling, of understanding, of loving; the way of seeing the country, the faces that your father saw, that your mother knew. The rest is chimerical.

The richness of the world, all artificial pleasures, have the taste of sickness and give off a smell of death in the face of certain spiritual possessions.