“Without anxiety and illness I would have been like a ship without a rudder.”

My art is rooted in a single reflection: why am I not as others are? My art gives meaning to my life.

The notes I have made are not a diary in the ordinary sense, but partly lengthy records of my spiritual experiences, and partly poems in prose.

It was always my intention that The Frieze should be housed in a room which would provide a suitable architectural frame for it.

Just as Leonardo da Vinci studied human anatomy and dissected corpses, so I try to dissect souls.

If what you want to paint is the emotive mood in all its strength then you must not sit and stare at everything and depict it exactly as one sees it.

But can they great works get rid of the worm that lies gnawing at the roots of my heart? No, never.

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

Art comes from joy and pain, But mostly from pain.

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

Without fear and disease, my life would be like a boat without oars.

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

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

Through my art I have tried to explain my life and its meaning. I have also intended to help others to clarify their lives.

When I paint a person, his enemies always find the portrait a good likeness.

What is art? Art grows from joy and sorrow, but mostly from sorrow. It grows from human lives.

This kind of painting with its large frames is a bourgeois drawing-room art. It is an art dealer’s art-and that came in after the civil wars following the French Revolution.

Anxiety is our agitated soul scrambling for control.

Three enemies of personal peace: regret over yesterday’s mistakes, anxiety over tomorrow’s problems, and ingratitude for today’s blessings.

If you didn’t have anxiety, then you wouldn’t have passion for anything. The reason we have anxiety is because you care and you’re thoughtful.

There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it.

The art to breathe and smile despite the pressure of anxiety, takes courage and power, keep appreciating yourself.

I’ve spent most of my life not understanding that my anxiety was causing a downward spiral, self-medicating, and self-sabotage.

Choosing to live with less stuff is choosing to live with less stress and less anxiety.  

My anxious self always melted in your arms, then. Now your grin from another screen telling me “its going to be okay” works just the same.