These women of mine are decent, simple human beings who have no other concern than that of their physical condition... it is as though one were watching through a keyhole.

Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.

It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.

The artist does not draw what he sees, but what he must make others see. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things. A picture is first of all a product of the imagination of the artist; it must never be a copy. If then two or three natural accents can be added, obviously no harm is done. The air we see in the paintings of the old masters is never the air we breathe.

One does not marry art. One ravishes it.

The fascinating thing, is not to show the source of light, but the effect of light.

What is certain is that setting a piece of nature in place and drawing it are two very different things.