Be sure to give the same expression to a person's face that you give to his body.

No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters.

I put it [picture "A still life of a pear" by Edouard Manet] there [on the wall, next to the picture "Jupiter and Thetis" by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres], for a pear like that would overthrow any god.

I really have a lot of stuff in my head; if only there were insurance companies for that as there are for so many things.

It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious - to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality - he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market. All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.

What a horrible thing yellow is.

Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty.