Without the fog, London would not be a beautiful city. It is fog that gives it its magnificent amplitude...its regular and massive blocks become grandiose in that mysterious mantle.

Nothing in the whole world is of interest to me but my painting and my flowers.

Gardening was something I learned in my youth when I was unhappy. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

Pictures aren't made out of doctrines. Since the appearance of impressionism, the official salons, which used to be brown, have become blue, green, and red...But peppermint or chocolate, they are still confections.

For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.

The real subject of every painting is light.

To have gone to all this trouble to get to this is just too stupid! Outside there's brilliant sunshine but I don't feel up to looking at it.