What is to be done about these literary people, who will never understand that painting is a craft and that the material side comes first? The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

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

Nothing costs so little, goes so far, and accomplishes so much as a single act of merciful service.

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

The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion.

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

And if out of a million visitors there is even one to whom art means something, that is enough to justify museums.