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

The interesting thing is that in everyday life, I fail to see the most ordinary things. I often stumble and sometimes I even fall over. But when I draw or look at a painting, I go into a sort of overdrive and just see things differently than other people.

For the cynic, art is defined through money. That, of course, is a very sad statement. But an artist is someone who does creative things.

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.

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

The trick is to paint a picture that doesn't exist, and yet that fits perfectly into an artist's body of work.

I never decided to become an art forger. I was aware of my talent at an early age, and I used it foolishly. This developed over the years. In my heart, I don't see myself as a criminal.