I cannot copy nature in a servile way; I am forced to interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture. From the relationship I have found in all the tones there must result a living harmony of colors, a harmony analogous to that of a musical composition.

Truth and reality in art do not arise until you no longer understand what you are doing and are capable of but nevertheless sense a power that grows in proportion to your resistance.

When a painting is finished, it's like a new born child, and the artist himself must have time for understanding. How then do you expect an amateur to understand that which the artist dos not yet comprehend.

When an artist or student draws a nude figure with painstaking care, the result is drawing, and not emotion.

It has always bothered me that I don't paint like everyone else

...The more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

Drawing is putting a line around an idea.