To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one's fling from time to time, smoke one's pipe, and drink one's coffee in peace

I do not intend to spare myself, not to avoid emotions or difficulties. I don't care much whether I live a longer or shorter time... the world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt toward it, because I have walked on this earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude I want to leave some souvenir.

But what's your ultimate goal, you'll say. That goal will become clearer, will take shape slowly and surely, as the croquis becomes a sketch and the sketch a painting, as one works more seriously, as one digs deeper into the originally vague idea, the first fugitive, passing thought, unless it becomes firm.

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.

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.

You can feel the stars and the infinity of the sky since life, in spite of everything, is like a dream.

Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.