The picture surface recedes just as much in the 20th century as it did in the 15th. The techniques of making pictures have hardly changed.

- Howard Hodgkin

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

- Howard Hodgkin

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

- Howard Hodgkin

You keep on balancing and balancing and balancing until the picture wins, because then the subject's turned into the picture.

- Howard Hodgkin

I want my pictures to be things. I want them to be made up of marks that are physically and individually self-sufficient.

- Howard Hodgkin

Passion lies between one mark and the next, and also within all of them.

- Howard Hodgkin

The only way an artist can communicate with the world at large is on the level of feeling.

- Howard Hodgkin

A lot of people... are afraid of pictures which have visible emotions in them. They feel calmer in front of pictures which are placid.

- Howard Hodgkin

I think words come between the spectator and the picture.

- Howard Hodgkin