Denica

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

My painting carries with it the message of pain.

Painting completed my life.

His capacity for work breaks clocks and calendars. [on Diego Rivera]

I cannot speak of Diego as my husband because that term, when applied to him, is an absurdity. He never has been, nor will he ever be, anybody’s husband.

I never knew I was a surrealist till Andr Breton came to Mexico and told me I was.

I drank to drown my pain, but the damned pain learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good behavior.

Tamale Recipes

"The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad."

"I do not take drugs. I am drugs."

"Picasso is a painter, so am I; Picasso is Spanish, so am I; Picasso is a communist, neither am I."

"To paint a picture is either very simple or impossible."

"The problem with the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it."

"Many people do not reach their eighties because they spend too much time in their forties."

"At the age of six years I wanted to be a chef. At the age of seven I wanted to be Napoleon. My ambitions have continued to grow at the same rate ever since."

"Every morning when I awake, the greatest of joys is mine: that of being Salvador Dalí."

"To be an artist is to believe in life."

"I feel the need of attaining the maximum of intensity with the minimum of means. It is this which has led me to give my painting a character of even greater bareness."

"For me a form is never something abstract: it is always a sign of something. It is a man, a bird, or something else. For me painting is never form for form's sake."