I am an artist... It's self-evident that what that word implies is looking for something all the time without ever finding it in full. It is the opposite of saying, 'I know all about it. I've already found it.' As far as I'm concerned, the word means, 'I am looking. I am hunting for it. I am deeply involved.'

I am working with the enthusiasm of a man from Marseilles eating bouillabaisse, which shouldn't come as a surprise to you because I am busy painting huge sunflowers.

If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.

I do not intend to spare myself, not to avoid emotions or difficulties. I don't care much whether I live a longer or shorter time... the world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt toward it, because I have walked on this earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude I want to leave some souvenir.

What is drawing? How does one get there? It's working one's way through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. How can one get through that wall? - since hammering on it doesn't help at all. In my view, one must undermine the wall and grind through it slowly and patiently.

If your inner voice is telling you that you can't paint, by all means, hurry up and paint and silence the voice.

To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life