Balthus

Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.

I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always a slight touch of mystery in my paintings.

Painting is a language which cannot be replaced by another language. I don't know what to say about what I paint, really.

After all, we are not French and never can be, and any attempt to be so is to deny our inheritance and to try to impose upon ourselves a character that can be nothing but a veneer upon the surface.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.

It took me realizing that a broken heart has never actually killed anyone to find the courage to ask for what I want, in just about every situation. That was part of my own growing up.