On my first days here I did not start work immediately but, as planned, I took it easy for a few days - flicked through books, studied Japanese art a little.

Art is a line around your thoughts.

There is always hope, as long as the canvases are empty.

If the weather is good I go into the nearby wood - there I am painting a small beech forest (in the sun) with a few conifers mixed in. This takes until 8 'o clock.

There is no self-portrait of me.

Even when I have to write a simple letter I'm scared stiff as if faced with looming seasickness.

True relaxation, which would do me the world of good, does not exist for me.

Whoever wants to know something about me - as an artist which alone is significant - they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.

I can paint and draw. I believe this myself and a few other people say that they believe this too. But I'm not certain of whether it's true.

There is nothing that special to see when looking at me. I'm a painter who paints day in day out, from morning till evening - figure pictures and landscapes, more rarely portraits.

There is nothing that special to see when looking at me.

Life is a precious gift, but we realize this only when we are in the end. Change it.

How I love - writing, acting, breathing the atmosphere- and one day I'll have it. If I cannot write, I shall die.

I really don't have a problem showing the ugly side of people. If that means my wearing no makeup, that's fine. To me, that's beautiful.

You get faith by studying the Word. Study that Word until something in you "knows that you know" and that you do not just hope that you know.

It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: Is it true in and for itself?

I feel a responsibility to get the truth out into the world.

The more intellectual you are, the more egoistic you are, and surrendering becomes more difficult.

I didn't know Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, but I was affected by both of their deaths because I admired their work so much and mourned their youth and work they would never produce.

In learning to know other things, and other minds, we become more intimately acquainted with ourselves, and are to ourselves better worth knowing.

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it.