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

One is a criminal to some people and an artist to others. I can understand that. In a legal sense, I am a convicted criminal.

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 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.

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

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.

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.