Your face encompasses the beauty of the whole earth. Your lips, as red as ripening fruit, gently part as if in pain. It is the smile of a corpse. Now the hand of death touches life. The chain is forged that links the thousand families that are dead to the thousand generations to come.

The viewers must come to understand the sacredness of painting, so they will remove their hats as if they were in church.

No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.

I have no fear of photography as long as it cannot be used in heaven and in hell.

The rich man who gives, steals twice over. First he steals the money and then the hearts of men.

To die is as if one's eyes had been put out and one cannot see anything any more. Perhaps it is like being shut in a cellar. One is abandoned by all. They have slammed the door and are gone. One does not see anything and notices only the damp smell of putrefaction.

When I paint, I never think of selling. People simply fail to understand that we paint in order to experiment and to develop ourselves as we strive for greater heights.