85 Quotes by Louise Bourgeois

You must put the essence of what you want to say into a painting. The rest is arbitrary. Chosen with discernment, but chosen, and choice involves elimination.

My work disturbs people and nobody wants to be disturbed. They are not fully aware of the effect my work has on them, but they know it is disturbing.

It is a great privilege to be able to work with, and I suppose work off, my feelings through sculpture.

My work has to do with a defense against fervor. People are always in a rush. To do what? To do nothing! There is a kind of fervor that is completely meaningless. This drawing is a call for meditation.... I am an insomniac, so for me the state of being asleep is paradise. It is a paradise I can never reach. But I still try to conquer the insomnia, and to a large extent I have done it; it is conquerable. My drawings are a kind of rocking or stroking and an attempt at finding peace. Peaceful rhythm. Like rocking a baby to sleep.

I do not need the musing of the philosophers to tell me what I am doing. It would be more interesting to let me know why I am doing it.

A work of art doesn't have to be explained,

Every day you have to abandon your past or accept it and then, if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor.

When I was growing up, all the women in my house were using needles. I've always had a fascination with the needle, the magic power of the needle. The needle is used to repair damage. It's a claim to forgiveness. It is never aggressive, it's not a pin.

The feminists took me as a role model, as a mother. It bothers me. I am not interested in being a mother. I am still a girl trying to understand myself.