However terrible it is, the thing never involves any sadness — Bram van Velde

"I am in a thousand pieces. Painting somehow makes me whole."

"My work is independent of my will. My best works are created when driven by an inner strength. This has nothing to do with my will. It is that immediate spontaneity of my intense way of living that makes the difference between my work and a lot of other artists who make art works with their mind."

"I can’t say anything. There are no words."

"The beauty other people create is not for the artists. Artists have to live alone."

"Through painting I try to get closer to nothingness, to the void."

"If these gouaches [Bram van Velde recently made] live at all, it is because they are true, they derive from life. They are born of the unknown – and not of habit or know-how, or intention, or of some recipe.. ..there comes a time when serious work is no longer an effort. When demanding work of that kind no longer tires you."