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

I always forbade everyone to clean my studios, dust them, not only for fear they would disturb my things, but especially because I always counted on the protection of dust. It's my ally. I always let it settle where it likes. It's like a layer of protection.

Everything you can imagine is real.

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.

To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.

Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint.