When I enter the studio, I leave my body at the door the way the Moslems leave their shoes when they enter the mosque, and I only allow my spirit to go in there and paint.

Have you noticed that bones are always modeled and not carved, that you always have the impression they come from a mold, that they were first modeled in clay? Any bone you look at, you always find fingerprints on it.

Why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of a bird?

The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?

He was an Afghan Hound name Kabul. Since him I have had other Afghan Hounds.... Perhaps I am looking for his ghost. He is the only one that I sometimes think about. Often, if he comes in to my mind when I am working, it alters what I do. The nose on the face I am drawing gets longer and sharper. The hair of the woman I am sketching gets longer and fluffy, resting against her cheeks like his ears rested against his head.

The path to youth takes a lifetime.

...art is something subversive. It's something that should not be free. Art and liberty, like the fire of Prometheus, are things that one must steal, to be used against the established order.