l can do very well without God both in my life and in my painting, but l cannot, ill as I am, do without something which is greater than l, which is my life — the power to create.

I am painting with the same enthusiasm as a Marseillaise eats bouillabaisse ... I am painting big sunflowers.

The sight of stars always sets me dreaming just as naively as those black dots on a map set me dreaming of towns and villages. Why should these points of light in the firmament, I wonder, be less accessible than the dark ones on the map of France? We take a train to go to Torascon or Roven and we take death to a star.

There is a sun, a light that for want of another word I can only call yellow, pale sulphur yellow, pale golden citron. How lovely yellow is!

Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And let us not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil.

We are having wind and rain here, and I am very glad not to be alone. I work from memory on bad days, and that would not do if I were alone.

Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.