I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to settle themselves in my brain.

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.

The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects.

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.

My garden is a slow work, pursued with love and I do not deny that I am proud of it. Forty years ago, when I established myself here, there was nothing but a farmhouse and a poor orchard...I bought the house and little by little I enlarged and organized it...I dug, planted weeded, myself; in the evenings the children watered.

I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that's the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible.