'People often say that my paintings remind them of particular scenes from films or certain passages from books, but I think it's a different thing altogether. There is something more primal about painting. In terms of my own paintings, there is something quite basic about them, which inevitably is to do with their materiality. They are totally non-linguistic. There is no textual support to what you are seeing. Often I am trying to create a numbness. I am trying to create something that is questionable, something that is difficult if not impossible, to put into words.'

Peter Doig, '20 Questions by Matthew Higgs' in Peter Doig, University of British Columbia, 2001.