I am curious about color as one would be visiting a new country, because I have never concentrated so closely on color expression. Up to now I have waited at the gates of the temple.

He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back.

...for whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions.

Color was not given to us in order that we should imitate Nature. It was given to us so that we can express our emotions.

Slowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality. With more involvement and regularity, I learned to push each study in a certain direction. Little by little the notion that painting is a means of expression asserted itself, and that one can express the same thing in several ways. Exactitude is not truth, Delacroix liked to say.

I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.

I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.