Top 26 Quotes by Howard Hodgkin

I don't think you can lightly paint a picture. It's an activity I take very seriously.

I hate painting.

My friends tend to be writers. I think writers and painters are really all the same-we just sit in our rooms.

The picture surface recedes just as much in the 20th century as it did in the 15th. The techniques of making pictures have hardly changed.

Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that I eat too much-I'm one of nature's shoppers.

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.

My language is what I use, and if I lost that, I wouldn't be able to say anything.

I'm very envious of the few artists who are any good and still do portraits.

I look at my pictures, and I think, 'Well, how did I do that?'

When I finish a painting, it usually looks as surprising to me as to anyone else.