What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.

No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters.

Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see.

We were created to look at one another, weren't we?

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.

I would have been in mortal misery all my life for fear my wife might say, "That's a pretty little thing," after I had finished a picture.

Realism is more important than the sentiment of the picture.