“My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Sometimes I try to leave my narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find myself drawn inexorably back towards the chasm's edge, and there I shall walk until the day I finally fall into the abyss.”

“The rich man who gives, steals twice over. First he steals the money and then the hearts of men.”

“For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art.”

“I have no fear of photography as long as it cannot be used in heaven and in hell.”

“No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.”

“I painted the picture, and in the colors the rhythm of the music quivers. I painted the colors I saw.”

“Disease, insanity, and death were the angels that attended my cradle, and since then have followed me throughout my life.”

“Death is pitch-dark, but colors are light. To be a painter, one must work with rays of light.”

“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.”

“Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life.”

“Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.”