85 Quotes by Louise Bourgeois

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.

A work of art doesn’t have to be explained. If you do not have any feeling about this, I cannot explain it to you. If this doesn’t touch you, I have failed.

The subject of pain is the business I am in – to give meaning and shape to frustration and suffering. The existence of pain cannot be denied. I propose no remedies or excuses.

Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented – which is what fear and anxiety do to a person – into something whole.

My knives are like a tongue – I love, I do not love, I hate. If you don’t love me, I am ready to attack. I am a double-edged knife.

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.

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.

Look at it this way – a totem pole is just a decorated tree. My work is a confessional.

He was the wolf, and she was the rational hare, forgiving and accepting him as he was.