I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it.

If people knew what Matisse, supposedly the painter of happiness, had gone through, the anguish and tragedy he had to overcome to manage to capture that light which has never left him, if people knew all that, they would also realize that this happiness, this light, this dispassionate wisdom which seems to be mine, are sometimes well-deserved, given the severity of my trials.

I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.

Exactitude is not truth.

When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky.

The energy within you is stronger than ever for being held back, compressed, and said No to.

I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.