People call me the painter of dancing girls. It has never occurred to them that my chief interest in dancers lies in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes.

So that's the telephone? They ring, and you run.

Make people's portraits in familiar and typical attitudes.

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

Taste! It doesn't exist. An artist makes beautiful things without being aware of it.

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.

My art, what do you want to say about it? Do you think you can explain the merits of a picture to those who do not see them? . . . I can find the best and clearest words to explain my meaning, and I have spoken to the most intelligent people about art, and they have not understood; but among people who understand, words are not necessary, you say humph, he, ha and everything has been said.