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

You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.

Do portraits of people in familiar and typical attitudes, above all give to their face the same choice of expression that one gives to their body.

A picture is first of all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy.

I put it [picture "A still life of a pear" by Edouard Manet] there [on the wall, next to the picture "Jupiter and Thetis" by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres], for a pear like that would overthrow any god.

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

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