I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Art is the best possible introduction to the culture of the world. I love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings it can summon at a touch. It washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

I who have been involved with all styles of painting can assure you that the only things that fluctuate are the waves of fashion which carry the snobs and speculators; the number of true connoisseurs remains more or less the same.

Can you imagine me calling myself "Ruiz"? "Pablo Ruiz"? "Diego-José Ruiz"? Or "Juan-Népomucène Ruiz"? I was given I don't know how many names.

Beauty? To me it is a word without sense because I do not know where its meaning comes from nor where it leads to.

When German soldiers used to come to my studio and look at my pictures of Guernica, they'd ask 'Did you do this?'. And I'd say, 'No, you did.'

I'm a joker who has understood his epoch and has extracted all he possibly could from the stupidity, greed and vanity of his contemporaries.