For being a bad student I was banished to the 'calaboose' - a bare cell with whitewashed walls and a bench to sit on. I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly I could have stayed there forever drawing without stopping

The only thing emanating from my pictures should be emotion.

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.

People want to find a 'meaning' in everything and everyone. That's the disease of our age...

In the end there is only Matisse.

All children paint like geniuses. What do we do to them that so quickly dulls this ability?

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