I begin with an idea, but as I work, the picture takes over. Then there is the struggle between the idea I preconceived... and the picture that fights for its own life.

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.

What counts most is finding new ways to get the world down in paint on my own terms.

Women don't paint very well. It's a fact. There are, of course, exceptions. Agnes Martin or, from the past, Paula Modersohn-Becker.

An object painted upside down is suitable for painting because it is unsuitable as an object.

I had always loved expressionist painting, like every European. In fact I admired it all the more because these were precisely the paintings despised by my father's generation.

Art is visceral and vulgar - it's an eruption.

I hang my work upside down to emphasize surface.

The reality is the picture, it is most certainly not in the picture.

What I could never escape was Germany, and being German.

The idea of changing or improving the world is alien to me and seems ludicrous. Society functions, and always has, without the artist. No artist has ever changed anything for better or worse.

Aim at nothing and you'll succeed.

Learn how to feel joy.

Familial betrayal is, to me, the most heartbreaking kind - because if you can't trust your family to love you and protect you, who can you really trust?

I do want to be a spokesman for clean cycling - I believe somebody has to stand up for the current generation. I'm happy to do that.

If I didn't have children I'd be a much better actress. I wouldn't be so distracted. I could pour 100 percent of my energies into it, to promote the investigation which acting is.

You'd be naive if you think you are going to retain any control once you option a character to TV.

What track needs to figure out: how to engage us between the races. Instead, the entire off-the-track conversation is about doping. This is how you kill a sport.

By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.

What you get to choose today is who you are and what you wish to experience in your life. Remember, not to decide is to decide.

Denmark is sadly a hellish place if you happen to be a pig, but the brioche and fruits that tower on the table before me have me hastily attaching a feedbag.