Without great solitude no serious work is possible.

Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.

You don't make art, you find it

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

A painting only lives in the eye of the beholder

When you begin a picture you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy the thing, do it over several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery, the artist does not really suppress it, but rather condenses it, makes it more substantial. What comes out in the end is the result of discarded finds. Otherwise you become your own connoisseur.

...the right to free expression is something one seizes, not something one is given.... if it does exist, it exists to be used against the established order.... There is absolute opposition between the artist and the state.