Quotes from Louise Bourgeois

Once I was beset by anxiety but I pushed the fear away by studying the sky, determining when the moon would come out and where the sun would appear in the morning.

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.

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.

I have kept a diary as long as I can remember, and drawings are really another kind of diary.

Tell your own story, and you will be interesting.

My life has been regulated by insomnia.

Surrealism is anathema for me. Because the surrealists made a joke of everything. And I consider life a tragedy.

Even though what I do does enter the market, it doesn't interest me. I am exclusively concerned with the formal qualities of my work. It is about the need and the right to self-expression.

When my mother died, I fell apart. My father wanted to control me. As a consequence, I ran away to America.

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.

I always had the fear of being separated and abandoned. The sewing is my attempt to keep things together and make things whole.

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

The spider is an animal who eats mosquitoes. That's why I love the spider - it is the only way we have to deal with these insects.

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

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 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 rewoven.

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

My childhood has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama.

I know that when I finish a drawing, my anxiety level decreases. The realistic drawings are a way of pinning down an idea. I don't want to loose it. With the abstract drawings, when I'm feeling loose, I can slip into the unconscious.

To express your emotions, you have to be very loose and receptive. The unconscious will come to you if you have that gift that artists have. I only know if I'm inspired by the results.

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.

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

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 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.