Fame never interested me. I could have exhibited more of my own works in the 1970s, but I didn't want to. It's sort of like being a child. When you're finished with school, you have only one thing on your mind: to get out and experience life. Did I want to spend all my time working on a painting? No, I wanted to have fun, travel, meet women and live life.

You can't paint pictures of love. You can only imagine them. So I suppose I don't need a painting by another artist. I have enough of my own.

I can paint anything. Leonardo? Of course. But why? You couldn't sell it.

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 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.

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.

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.