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

One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity.

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.

With a limited palette, the older painters could do just as well as today what they did was sounder.

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.

There isn't a single person or landscape or subject which doesn't possess some interest, although it may not be immediately apparent. When a painter discovers this hidden treasure, other people are immediately struck by its beauty.

One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of Impressionism.