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.

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.

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.

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.

With the spirit of endurance, we shall strive in any situation.

I think he knows all my tricks. Or the fact I don't have any tricks

That is what you are. That's what you all are...All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation.

The Internet is like a town that leaves its streets unmarked on the principle that people who don't already know don't belong

It is sometimes essential for a husband and a wife to quarrel - they get to know each other better.

The focus is what is right before you - to give it your best. It sows the seeds of tomorrow.

Completely understand the customer by seeking an intense, complete and empathetic understanding.

Folly is wont to have more followers and comrades than discretion.

We all just took the bookstore at its word, because if you couldn't trust a bookstore, what could you trust?

The best way I can mentor and lead those around me is to embody these qualities myself.