Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

Matisse makes a drawing, then he makes a copy of it. He copies it five times, ten times, always clarifying the line. He’s convinced that the last, the most stripped down, is the best, the purest, the definitive one; and in fact, most of the time, it was the first. In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.

So there's only one tactic for the state: kill the seers.

It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

We artists are indestructible; even in a prison, or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell.

When I work I relax; doing nothing or entertaining visitors makes me tired.