The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.

A young painter who cannot liberate himself from the influence of past generations is digging his own grave.

In the beginning you must subject yourself to the influence of nature. You must be able to walk firmly on the ground before you start walking on a tightrope.

If my story were ever to be written truthfully from start to finish, it would amaze everyone.

My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory, it is based on observation, on feeling, on the experience of my sensibility.

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

Slowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality. With more involvement and regularity, I learned to push each study in a certain direction. Little by little the notion that painting is a means of expression asserted itself, and that one can express the same thing in several ways. Exactitude is not truth, Delacroix liked to say.