We have a definite but unknown quantity of experience at our disposal. As soon as the hourglass is turned, the sand will begin to run out and once it starts, it cannot stop until it's all gone.

One never knows what one is going to do. One starts a painting and then it becomes something quite different.

We didn't want to sign the painting itself, that would have interfered with the composition. And even later, for that reason or for another, I sometimes marked my canvases on the back. If you don't see my signature and the date, madam, it's because the frame is hiding it.

Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized.

Each time I undertake to paint a picture I have a sensation of leaping into space. I never know whether I shall fall on my feet. It is only later that I begin to estimate more exactly the the effect of my work.

Whatever is most abstract may perhaps be the summit of reality.

One cannot be a sorcerer all the time. How could one live?