I painted myself out of my painting.

About three years went by and I had become exhausted - really at the end of my rope almost - and I thought I couldn't last much longer... and at the very end, when I thought of giving it all up, suddenly I thought it was good. I knew that I now understood something about it and I painted it as easily as you can imagine.

I'd fallen asleep thinking I was much too tired to go on working and if I went on working, I'd lose it. I'd get a better hold of it in the morning; feel stronger. But I looked and looked at it and it seemed to me there was nothing to do.

As soon as you set yourself up in the position of transferring paint from one place to another, your whole culture invades you. It tells you all about the history of art.

Pulling yourself up again is the most important part of your life. Getting out of the bottom that you put everything into - yourself!

The religions never wanted an art where you paint only what you see.

Each of us has a universal within us. There's always that making of parts - but it doesn't touch the universal within you.