You must forget all your theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the subject.

A painting in an interior spreads joy around it by the colors, which calm us.

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.

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.

Don't try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.

...The more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

There are wonderful things in Jazz, the improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.