I have never seen a beautiful painting of a beautiful woman. But you can take an ugly woman and make a beautiful painting of her. It is the painting itself that should be beautiful.

Who made art history? Not the most reasonable people. The mad men did. If painting is the mirror of a time, it must be mad to have a true image of what that time is. To one madness we oppose another madness.

Art has got nothing to do with taste.

My paintings are not meant to be tasted.

Painting is neither decorative amusement, nor the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

The virtue of pride, which was once the beauty of mankind, has given place to that fount of ugliness, Christian humility.

The role of the painter . . . is to project that which sees itself in him.