Success is a worn down pencil.

One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone.

I never allowed myself the luxury of those brilliant, beautiful colors until I went to India and saw people walking around in them or dragging them in the mud. I realised they were not so artificial.

I don't like masterpieces having one-night stands in collectors' homes between auctions.

The only thing that I could get with chance, and I never was able to use it, was that I would end up with something quite geometric or the spirit that I was interested in, indulging in, was gone.

I'm sure we don't read old paintings the way they were intended

Art is a means to function thoroughly and passionately in a world that has a lot more to it than paint.