“Painting and fucking a lot don’t go together, it softens the brain. Which is a bloody nuisance. The symbol of St. Luke, the patron saint of painters, is, as you know, an ox. So you just be patient as an ox if you want to work in the artistic field. Still, bulls are lucky not to have to work at that foul business of painting. But what I wanted to say is this: after the period of melancholy is over you will be stronger than before, you will recover your health, and you will find the scenery round you so beautiful that you will want to do nothing but paint.”

“In our culture, I think many traditions have not completely disappeared because we do have some kind of written record. I suspect that in many ways, however, their real identities are gone. I think we are looking at skeletons, without being sure what kind of flesh they ought to be clothed in.”