A painting or sculpture not modelled on any real object is every bit as concrete and sensuous as a leaf or a stone... but it is an incomplete art which privileges the intellect to the detriment of the senses.

Ever since my childhood, I was haunted by the search for perfection. An imperfectly cut paper literally made me ill. I would guillotine it.

I use very little red. I use blue, yellow, a little green, but especially... black, white and grey. There is a certain need in me for communication with human beings. Black and white is writing.

The vertical and the horizontal are the extreme signs available to man for touching the beyond and his inwardness.

Zurich in 1915,... While the thunder of the batteries rumbled in the distance, we pasted, we recited, we versified, we sang with all our soul. We searched for an elementary art that would, we thought, save mankind from the madness of these times.

To be full of joy when looking at an oeuvre is not a little thing.

Since the time of the cavemen, man has glorified himself, has made himself divine, and his monstrous vanity has caused human catastrophe. Art has collaborated in this false development. I find this concept of art which has sustained man's vanity to be loathsome.