Quotes from Karel Appel

I'm not a pessimist. Maybe I don't have a primitive feeling of happiness, that is true. Sometimes my color is happy but not the expression.

Every day I have to be awake to escape.. ..The whole world is sleepy. It is a real fight to be awake, to see everything new, for the first time in your life.

If I paint like a barbarian, it's because we live in a barbarous age

Through play, we renew contact with childhood – My art is childlike.

As an artist you have to fight and survive the wilderness to keep your creative freedom. Creativity is very fragile.