No, I'm not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet.

Most people think I paint fast. I paint very slowly.

I must have flowers, always, and always.

The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.

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.

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.

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.