When I stand before a canvas, I never know what I'll do, and I am the first one surprised at what comes out.

More important than a work of art itself is what it will sow. Art can die, a painting can disappear. What counts is the seed.

I make no distinction between poetry and painting.

The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness.

The spectacle of the sky overwhelms me. Im overwhelmed when I see, in an immense sky, the crescent of the moon, or the sun. There, in my pictures, tiny forms in huge empty spaces. Empty spaces, empty horizons, empty plains - everything which is bare has always greatly impressed me.

For me an object is something living. This cigarette or this box of matches contains a secret life much more intense than that of certain human beings.

Little by little, I've reached the stage of using only a small number of forms and colors. It's not the first time that painting has been done with a very narrow range of colors. The frescoes of the tenth century are painted like this. For me, they are magnificent things.