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

My only desire is an intimate infusion with nature, and the only fate I wish is to have worked and lived in harmony with her laws.

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

Zaandam has enough to paint for a lifetime.

If the world really looks like that I will paint no more!

It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water.

When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, house, a field....Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naive impression of the scene before you.