Art class was like a religious ceremony to me. I would wash my hands carefully before touching paper or pencils. The instruments of work were sacred objects to me.

The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later.

You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at the picture for a second and think of it all your life.

A simple line painted with the brush can lead to freedom and happiness.

More important than a work of art itself is what it will sow. Art can die, a painting can disappear. What counts is the seed.

Poetry and painting are done in the same way you make love; it's an exchange of blood, a total embrace - without caution, without any thought of protecting yourself.

To gain freedom is to gain simplicity.

If you have any notion of where you are going, you will never get anywhere.

When I stand before a canvas, I never know what I'll do, and I am the first one surprised at what comes out.

What I am seeking... is a motionless movement, something equivalent to what is called the eloquence of silence.

I think of my studio as a vegetable garden, where things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. You have to graft. You have to water.

You’ve always been a stormYour lightning mouthElectrifies my heart

The Sun is bad enough even while he is single, drying up our marshes with his heat as he does. But what will become of us if he marries and and begets other suns?

Good management is the lifeblood of the healthy corporate body. Getting rid of it to save cost is like losing weight by giving blood.

The best evidence of merit is a cordial recognition of it whenever and wherever it may be found.

I gave myself an objective, to be the second president from Correze and finally to be the successor to Francois Mitterrand.

Give me a prejudice and I will move the world.

The Christ of Bethlehem is the Christ of Galilee, is the Christ of the Crucifixion, is the Christ of the Resurrection, is the Christ of the Eucharist

Guys are kind of retarded until they're about 30.

The stiffer the penalty, the greater the message is sent.