There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
Pablo Picasso

They ought to put out the eyes of painters as they do goldfinches in order that they can sing better.
Pablo Picasso

To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.
Pablo Picasso

To draw you must close your eyes and sing.
Pablo Picasso

To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.
Pablo Picasso

To make oneself hated is more difficult than to make oneself loved.
Pablo Picasso

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.
Pablo Picasso

We don't grow older, we grow riper.
Pablo Picasso

We must not discriminate between things. Where things are concerned there are no class distinctions. We must pick out what is good for us where we can find it.
Pablo Picasso

What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist.
Pablo Picasso

What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero.
Pablo Picasso

When I die, it will be a shipwreck, and as when a huge ship sinks, many people all around will be sucked down with it.
Pablo Picasso

When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.
Pablo Picasso

Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?
Pablo Picasso

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint.
Pablo Picasso

Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.
Pablo Picasso

You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea.
Pablo Picasso

You mustn't always believe what I say. Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer.
Pablo Picasso

Youth has no age.
Pablo Picasso