“My mother said to me, "If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope." Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.”
1. “The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense.”
2. “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
3. “An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought.”
4. “Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?”
5. “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”
6. “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
7. “Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.”
8. “He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.”
9. “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
10. “I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.”
11. “I have a horror of people who speak about the beautiful. What is the beautiful? One must speak of problems in painting!”
12. “If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.”
13. “If there were only one truth, you couldn't paint a hundred canvases on the same theme.”
14. “Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?”
15. “Love is the greatest refreshment in life.”
16. “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
17. “Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.”
18. “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
19. “Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.”
20. “Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.”
21. “Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.”
22. “The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.”
23. “There are only two types of women - goddesses and doormats.”
24. “The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”
25. “There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.”
26. “To draw you must close your eyes and sing.”
27. “There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.”
28. “To make oneself hated is more difficult than to make oneself loved.”
29. “Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?”
30. “Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.”
31. “You mustn't always believe what I say. Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer.”
32. “Youth has no age.”
33. “When I die, it will be a shipwreck, and as when a huge ship sinks, many people all around will be sucked down with it.”
34. “When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.”
35. “To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.”
