There has been talk of the risks this painting took by leaving the Louvre. But the risks taken by the boys who landed one day in Normandy-to say nothing of those who had preceded them 25 years before-were much more certain.

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness

The crucial discovery was made that, in order to become painting, the universe seen by the artist had to become a private one created by himself.

My painting is visible images which conceal nothing... they evoke mystery and indeed when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean'? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.

To the humblest among them, who may be listening to me now, I want to say that the masterpiece to which you are paying historic homage this evening is a painting which he has saved.

There are not fifty ways of fighting, there's only one, and that's to win. Neither revolution nor war consists in doing what one pleases.