Painting is the passage from the chaos of the emotions to the order of the possible.

Painting is a language which cannot be replaced by another language. I don't know what to say about what I paint, really.

I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always a slight touch of mystery in my paintings.

Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.

One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.

Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century.

If you speak of beauty, you are at once suspected of...kitsch.

The best way to begin is to say: 'Balthus is a painter of whom nothing is known. And now let us have a look at the paintings'.

I refuse to confide and don't like it when people write about art.

I had only planned to strike the gong violently in order to somehow shake people up and make them more aware. I think I succeeded.

When Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789, he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence.

I think I'll give them another chance. Americans deserve another chance with my music.

The penal code deals with things like theft, false testimony, adultery, fornication, etc. and then there's the law of the state, the law of the individual and the law of the public.

I'm the policy-maker; I'm the lawmaker.

If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself. Do that well and you'll be ready to stop managing. And start leading.

Whatever you can do with unhappiness, you can do better when you're happy.

Never get into the petty habit of measuring yourself worth against other people's net worth.

But I don't like working on lyrics publicly in the studio - I prefer to take them away and work on them in my bedroom.

Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth.

I like food, I like stripping vegetables of their skins, I like to have a slim young parsnip under my knife.