Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better.

We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.

Expression for me does not reside in passions glowing in a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive; the place occupied by my figures, the empty space around them, the proportions, everything has its share.

The artists must see all things as if he were seeing them for the first time. All his life he must see as he did when he was a child.

One must, of course, have one's entire experience behind one and not have lost the freshness of instinct.

It is my dream to create an art which is filled with balance, purity and calmness, freed from a subject matter that is disconcerting or too attention-seeking. In my paintings, I wish to create a spiritual remedy, similar to a comfortable armchair which provides rest from physical expectation for the spiritually working, the businessman as well as the artist.

Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with his limited medium.