I think that the most important requirement is to capture the essence of a piece of art. You look at it, essentially absorb it, and you have to be able to understand it visually without having to think about how it was done. I was already able to do that as a child.

I only painted when I felt like it and needed money. But it never really became a professional thing, even though the dealers would have liked that.

Every philharmonic orchestra merely interprets the composer. My goal was to create new music by that composer. In doing so, I wanted to find the painter's creative center and become familiar with it, so that I could see through his eyes how his paintings came about and, of course, see the new picture I was painting through his eyes - before I even painted it.

Most forgers are caught because they tell the wrong person about what they do.

Did I want to spend all my time working on a painting? No, I wanted to have fun, travel, meet women and live life.

No one ever ordered anything from me. I painted because I wanted to.

I lived on a houseboat in Amsterdam for a year. It was intense, and it's possible that I even had a few blackouts.