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I am isolated as an artist, not as a person.

A collection makes its own demands. Many artists have been collectors. I think of it rather as an illness. I felt it was using up too much energy.

A painting is finished when the subject comes back, when what has caused the painting to be made comes back as an object.

Howard Hodgkin

Painting

I am happy for people to talk about my pictures, but I wish devoutly that I was not expected to talk about them myself.

Howard Hodgkin

People

Talk

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.

Howard Hodgkin

Work

Artists

I don't really have a historical overview of my work at all. I'm not an art historian. I don't see that there's this period and that period.

Howard Hodgkin

Art

Work

I fell through a crack for years. Historically, I am a nothing because I fit in no category. I can only be me.

Howard Hodgkin

Nothing

Years

I find old copies of National Gallery catalogues, which are written in the dryest possible prose, infinitely soothing.

I hate painting.

I once was interviewed and got so exasperated that I said, 'What do you want, a shopping list?' They kept asking, 'What's in this picture?'

Howard Hodgkin

Want

I think that words are often extraneous to what I do.

Howard Hodgkin

Words

When I finish a painting, it usually looks as surprising to me as to anyone else.

Howard Hodgkin

Painting

Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that I eat too much-I'm one of nature's shoppers.

I think words come between the spectator and the picture.

Howard Hodgkin

Words

My language is what I use, and if I lost that, I wouldn't be able to say anything.

Howard Hodgkin

Language