You don't make art, you find it

I've reached the moment where the movement of my thought interests me more than the thought itself.

I love bats! Women are scared of them. They think bats can get caught in their hair, don't they? But bats are the most beautiful of animals, extraordinarily delicate. Have you observed their brilliant little eyes, gleaming with intelligence, and their skin, silky as velvet? And look at all these delicate little bones.

It is my misfortune - and probably my delight - to use things as my passions tell me. What a miserable fate for a painter who adores blondes to have to stop himself putting them into a picture because they don't go with the basket of fruit! . . . I put all the things I like into my pictures. The things - so much the worse for them. They just have to put up with it.

Something sacred, that's it. We ought to be able to say that such and such a painting is as it is, with its capacity for power, because it is "touched by God."

Those who attempts to explain a picture are on the wrong track most of the time.

Art is not chaste. Those ill prepared should be allowed no contact with art. Art is dangerous. If it is chaste, it is not art.