Balthus quotes:

Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is like a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

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

I refuse to confide and don't like it when people write about art.

Painting is the passage from the chaos of the emotions to the order of the possible.

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

One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.

The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century.

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.

The best way to begin is to say: Balthus is a painter of whom nothing is known. And now let us have a look at his paintings.

If you speak of beauty, you are at once suspected of...kitsch.

Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle...

I had only planned to strike the gong violently in order to somehow shake people up and make them more aware. I think I succeeded.

I will always find even the worst paintings that attempt some kind of representation better than the best invented paintings.