85 Quotes by Louise Bourgeois

Don't get the green disease of envy. Don't be fooled by success and money. Don't let anything come between you and your work.

In my sculpture, it's not an image I am seeking, it's not an idea. My goal is to re-live a past emotion. My art is an exorcism, and beauty is something I never talk about.

I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands...

My mother was a restorer, she repaired broken things. I don't do that. I destroy things. I cannot go the straight line. I must destroy, rebuild, destroy again. My rhythm is not the same. My mother moved in a straight line: I go from one extreme to the other.

An artist can show things that other people are terrified of expressing.

Everything I do is inspired by my early life”, Bourgeois’ looked up to her mother who was the most important person in her life for many reasons, ‘Maman’ symbolizes her mother; “The friend, because my best friend was my mother and she was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable, neat, and as useful as a spider.

Art is manipulation without intervention.

I am a searcher... I always was... and I still am... searching for the missing piece.

I have been to hell and back, and let me tell you, it was wonderful.