It is better to have done something than to have been someone.

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

I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint.

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

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

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.

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.