"The work of art must seize upon you...carry you away."

If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself.

My concern has always been to paint nudes as if they were some splendid fruit.

I look at a nude. There are myriads of tiny tints. I must find the ones that will make the flesh on my canvas live and quiver.

When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished.

If the painter works directly from nature, he ultimately looks for nothing but momentary effects; he does not try to compose, and soon he gets monotonous.

An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature.