As for myself, I met with as much success as I ever could have wanted. In other words, I was enthusiastically run-down by every critic of the period.

What could be said about me...a man to whom only his painting matters? And of course his garden and his flowers as well.

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. To such an extent indeed that one day, finding myself at the deathbed of a woman who had been and still was very dear to me, I caught myself in the act of focusing on her temples and automatically analyzing the succession of appropriately graded colors which death was imposing on her motionless face.

All I did was to look at what the universe showed me, to let my brush bear witness to it.

I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its way in that particular spot; and that is why I am working on the same motifs over and over again, four or six times even.

My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions.

Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.