When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling.. But it happens very rarely; usually it's agony. I go to great pains to mask the agony. But the struggle is there. It's the invisible enemy.

I want painting to be difficult to do. The more obstacles, obstructions, problems.. the better.

I seem to have to do it elaborately wrong and with many conceits first. Then maybe I can attack and deflate my pomposity and arrive at something straight and simple.

Abstract literally means to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract... a realistic or non-objective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts.

I can never accomplish what I want – only what I would have wanted had I thought of it beforehand.

My father didn't think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man. He hoped I would see my way to more serious work and would find myself turning towards medicine, law, or business.

All paintings start out of a mood, out of a relationship with things or people, out of a complete visual impression.

My freedom consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings.

It is not a matter of painting life. It's a matter of giving life to a painting.

In a successful painting everything is integral – all the parts belong to the whole. If you remove an aspect or element you are removing its wholeness.

I would like the colors, their shapes and positions to be arrived at in response to and dictated by the condition of the total space at the time they are considered.