"My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Sometimes I try to leave my narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find…"

"Art comes from joy and pain, but mostly from pain."

"I do not believe in the art which is not the compulsive result of man's urge to open his heart."

"The viewer should feel the pain, the joy, the love, the hate, the fear, the horror."

"No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love."