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.

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.

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.