“Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint.”

“Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.”

“Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.”

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

“The world doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”

“What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.”

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”