When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.

Inspiration exists, but you have to find it working.

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.

It means nothing to me. I have no opinion about it, and I don't care.

You can't run a without taking risks.

Art is a lie that makes us realise truth ... that is given us to understand.

Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.