My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.

Flesh was the reason why oil painting was invented

The past does not influence me; I influence it.

In art one idea is as good as another.

If you pick up some paint with your brush and make somebody's nose with it, this is rather ridiculous when you think of it, theoretically or philosophically. It's really absurd to make an image, like a human image, with paint, today.

I have to change to stay the same.

You have to keep on the very edge of something, all the time, or the picture dies.