Why don't you think of [God] as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity... the ultimate fruit of a tree whose leaves we are.

It is always what I have already said: always the wish that you may find patience enough in yourself to endure, and simplicity enough to believe; that you may acquire more and more confidence in that which is difficult, and in your solitude among others. And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, in any case.

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you.

Look, lovers: almost separately they come towards us through the flowery grass and slowly; parting's so far from thought of, they indulge the extravagance of walking unembraced.

My art is representational by choice....if the art of painting is to survive, it must describe and express people, their lives and times. It must communicate.

All feelings that concentrate you and lift you up are pure; only that feeling is impure which grasps just one side of your being and thus distorts you. Everything you can think of as you face your childhood, is good. Everything that makes more of you than you have ever been, even in your best hours, is right. Every intensification is good, if it is in your entire blood, if it isn't intoxication or muddiness, but joy which you can see into, clear to the bottom.

It is a tremendous act of violence to begin anything. I am not able to begin. I simply skip what should be the beginning.