Anselm Kiefer

Life is an illusion. I am held together in the nothingness by art.

Ruins, for me, are the beginning. With the debris, you can construct new ideas. They are symbols of a beginning.

If I do something that depresses, it's not because I'm depressed, but because political life and history is depressing.

The first thing that inspires me is my mood, but I take inspiration from a lot of things: a rock song, a romantic movie or a specific lifestyle, like 1960s London and, of course, Italian 'dolce vita!'

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.

After ten years of word processing, I can't even do hand writing anymore.