It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious - to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality - he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market. All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.

There is a kind of success that is indistinguishable from panic.

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

Boredom soon overcomes me when I am contemplating nature.

And even this heart of mine has something artificial. The dancers have sewn it into a bag of pink satin, pink satin slightly faded, like their dancing shoes.

You have to have a high conception, not of what you are doing, but of what you may do one day: without that, there's no point in working.