Because I cannot work except in solitude, it is necessary that I live my work and that is impossible except in solitude.

Races and religions may have changed, but the marketplace, the living quarters, pilgrimage sites, places of worship, have remained the same. Venus is replaced by the Virgin, but the same life goes on.

Without great solitude no serious work is possible.

What I want is that my picture should evoke nothing but emotion.

It is the object which aroused the artist, stimulated his ideas and set of his emotions. These ideas and emotions will be imprisoned in his work for good.

Museums are just a lot of lies, and the people who make art their business are mostly imposters. We have infected the pictures in museums with all our stupidities, all our mistakes, all our poverty of spirit. We have turned them into petty and ridiculous things.

Nature does many things the way I do, but she hides them!