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

The frame is the pimp of painting; it enhances it, but it must never shine at the painting's expense.

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

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

I should like to be famous and unknown.

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.

The artist does not draw what he sees, but what he has to make others see.