85 Quotes by Louise Bourgeois

I have drawn my whole life. My parents were in the tapestry restoration business, and as a young girl, I would draw in the missing parts of the tapestry that needed to be re-woven. My ability to draw made me indispensable to my parents.

For me, sculpture is the body. My body is my sculpture.

At the dinner table when I was very little, I would hear people bickering... To escape the bickering, I started modelling the soft bread with my fingers. With the dough of the French bread %u2013 sometimes it was still warm %u2013 I would make little figures. And I would line them up on the table and this was really my first sculpture.

The twentieth-century artist who uses symbols is alienated because the system of symbols is a private one. After you have dealt with the symbols you are still private, you are still lonely, because you are not sure anyone will understand it except yourself. The ransom of privacy is that you are alone.

I work like a bee and feel that I accomplish little.

Everyone should have the right to marry. To make a commitment to love someone forever is a beautiful thing.

Artists are born not made. There's nothing you can do for them.

I found in rules of mathematics a peace and a trust that I could not place in human beings. This sublimation was total and remained total.

I was a runaway girl from France who married an American and moved to New York City. Im not sure I would have continued as an artist had I remained in Paris because of the family setup.