When I eat a tomato I look at it the way anyone else would. But when I paint a tomato, then I see it differently.

An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.

An artist is an explorer. He has to begin by self-discovery and by observation of his own procedure. After that he must not feel under any constraint.

I don't paint women, I paint pictures. . . What I am after above all is expression. If in a portrait I put eyes, a nose, a mouth, there isn't much use; on the contrary it paralyses the imagination of the spectator, and obliges us to see the person in a certain way.

I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.

A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.

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