My drawings and paintings were done as an act of protest; I was trying by means of my work to convince the world that it is ugly, sick and hypocritical.

The cult of individuality and personality, which promotes painters and poets only to promote itself, is really a business. The greater the 'genius' of the personage, the greater the profit.

How did I come to be an artist ? Endless curiosity, observation, research - and a great amount of joy in the thing

Very little changed fundamentally, except that the proud German soldier had turned into a defeated bundle of misery and the great German army had disintegrated.

I had grown up in a humanist atmosphere, and war to me was never anything but horror, mutilation and senseless destruction, and I knew that many great and wise people felt the same way about it.

It's an old ploy of the bourgeoisie. They keep a standing 'art' to defend their collapsing culture.

What can I say about the First World War, a war in which I served as an infantryman, a war I hated at the start and to which I never warmed as it proceeded?

The war was a mirror; it reflected man's every virtue and every vice, and if you looked closely, like an artist at his drawings, it showed up both with unusual clarity.

I thought the war would never end. And perhaps it never did, either.

The neutrality and clarity of an engineering drawing is a better model for teaching about art than all the uncontrollable drivel about the cabbala and metaphysics and the ecstasy of sainthood.

Peace was declared, but not all of us were drunk with joy or stricken blind.

I should never be left alone with my mind for too long.

Worrying about something you can’t control has less benefit than a mosquito.

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

I want to be all used up when I die.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!

My first rule - the golden rule - ensures that over the economic cycle the Government will borrow only to invest, and that current spending will be met from taxation.

I don't believe in the afterlife, so I do think when somebody passes, it's worthy of note.

I love watching old movies anyway - I grew up with my mom watching old movies and being immersed in the history of old Hollywood.

I will go down with my colours flying.