Louise Bourgeois

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

It is a woman who hides. She believes that she can hide, which is foolishness; nobody can hide anything. And secondly, nobody would present herself naked the way she does. You have to be high to do this. This woman is obviously nice-looking, but she does not realize the effect she has on us. She does not know that she is half naked, and she does not know that she is trying to hide. That is to say, she is totally self-defeating, because she shows herself at the very moment that she thinks she is hiding.
-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.
-Louise Bourgeois

Art is manipulation without intervention.
-Louise Bourgeois

Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said.
-Louise Bourgeois

I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands.
-Louise Bourgeois

I have been to Hell and back and let me tell you it was wonderful.
-Louise Bourgeois

The grid is very peaceful. Nothing can go wrong. Everything is complete.
-Louise Bourgeois

Everywhere in the modern world there is neglect, the need to be recognized, which is not satisfied. Art is a way of recognizing oneself, which is why it will always be modern.
-Louise Bourgeois

It is a great privilege to be able to work with, and I suppose work off, my feelings through sculpture.
-Louise Bourgeois

Sometimes it is necessary to make a confrontation – and I like that.
-Louise Bourgeois

In real life, I identify with the victim. . . . In my art, I am the murderer. I feel for the ordeal of the murderer, the man who has to live with his conscience.
-Louise Bourgeois

It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive.
-Louise Bourgeois

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.
-Louise Bourgeois

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.
-Louise Bourgeois

What interests me is the conquering of the fear, the hiding, the running away from it, facing it, exorcising it, being ashamed of it, and, finally, being afraid of being afraid.
-Louise Bourgeois

For me, sculpture is the body. My body is my sculpture.
-Louise Bourgeois

When I was born my father and mother were fighting like cats and dogs. And the country was preparing for war, and my father who wanted a son got me, and my sister had just died. Please let me breathe.
-Louise Bourgeois

My childhood has never lost its magic, it has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama.
-Louise Bourgeois

Tell your own story, and you will be interesting. 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.
-Louise Bourgeois