I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring.

As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color.

As light fades and the shadows deepen, all petty and exacting details vanish, everything trivial disappears, and I see things as they are in great strong masses: the buttons are lost, but the sitter remains; the sitter is lost, but the shadow remains; the shadow is lost, but the picture remains. And that, night cannot efface from the painter's imagination.

The work of a master reeks not of the sweat of the brow - suggests no effort - and is finished from its beginning.

I always ask at once, 'Do you drink?' and if she says 'No,' I bow politely and say I am sorry but I fear she will not suit. All good cooks drink.

People will forgive anything but beauty and talent. So I am doubly unpardonable.

Art happens-no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.