I make no distinction between poetry and painting.

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.

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.

What I am looking for... is an immobile movement, something which would be the equivalent of what is called the eloquence of silence, or what St. John of the Cross, I think it was, described with the term 'mute music'.

The more I work, the more I want to work.

For me, a painting must give off sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem.