I have a horror of people who speak about the beautiful. What is the beautiful? One must speak of problems in painting!

Painting isn't made for the decoration of apartments; it is a weapon to be used offensively and defensively against the enemy.

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

[In developing your potential] ... I don't develop; I am

Each time I undertake to paint a picture I have a sensation of leaping into space. I never know whether I shall fall on my feet. It is only later that I begin to estimate more exactly the the effect of my work.

All human beings are born with the same creative potential. Most people squander theirs away on a million superfluous things. I expend mine on one thing and one thing only: my art.

When I paint a woman in an armchair, the armchair is there to show illness and death-or as a protection.