The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

Through education comes understanding. Through understanding comes true appreciation. All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

The only thing that's important is the legend created by the picture, and not whether it continues to exist itself.

Whether he wants it or not, man is the instrument of nature; she imposes on him character and appearance.

I don't think I'm wrong when I say that the most beautiful objects of the "stone age" were made of skin, fabric, and especially wood. The "stone age" ought to be called the "wood age." How many African statues are made of stone, bone, or ivory? Maybe one in a thousand! And prehistoric man had no more ivory at his disposal than African tribes. Maybe even less. He must have had thousands of wooden fetishes, all gone now.

I try to paint what I have found and not what I look for. In art, intentions are of little importance.

Basically the French are all peasants.