I would like to leave this world and never return. I severed my ear, but how I wish that I had severed my heart. I shall never amount to anything.

And painted portraits have a life of their own that comes from deep in the soul of the painter and where the machine can't go.

Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest huts, in the dirtiest corner. And my mind is drawn toward these things by an irresistible force.

When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.

But what's your ultimate goal, you'll say. That goal will become clearer, will take shape slowly and surely, as the croquis becomes a sketch and the sketch a painting, as one works more seriously, as one digs deeper into the originally vague idea, the first fugitive, passing thought, unless it becomes firm.