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.

I'm growing old, I delight in the past.

Simple colours can affect the intimate feelings with all the more force because they are simple.

I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.

If I close my eyes, I see things better than with my eyes open.

...for whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions.

Ever since there have been men, man has given himself over to too little joy. That alone, my brothers, is our original sin. I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance.