But when I am alone, I do not have the effrontery to consider myself an artist at all, not in the grand old meaning of the word: Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, Goya were great painters. I am only a public clown-a mountebank. I have understood my time and have exploited the imbecility, the vanity, the greed of my contemporaries. It is a bitter confession, this confession of mine, more painful than it may seem. But at least and at last it does have the merit of being honest.

We might adapt for the artist the joke about there being nothing more dangerous than instruments of war in the hands of generals. In the same way, there is nothing more dangerous than justice in the hands of judges, and a paint brush in the hands of a painter! Just think of the danger to society! But today we haven't the heart to expel the painters and poets because we no longer admit to ourselves that there is any danger in keeping them in our midst.

How often have I found that wanting to use blue, I didn't have it so I used a red instead of the blue.

Everybody has the same energy potential. The average person wastes his in a dozen little ways. I bring mine to bear on one thing only: my paintings, and everything else is sacrificed to it...myself included.

I'd like to live like a poor man with a lot of money.

If I like it, I say it's mine. If I don't I say it's a fake.

You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea.