The great artist is the simplifier.

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.

I am a man of passions, capable of and subject to doing more or less foolish things- which I happen to regret, more or less, afterwards.

But on the road that I'm on I must continue; if I do nothing, if I don't study, if I don't keep on trying, then I'm lost, then woe betide me. That's how I see this, to keep on, keep on, that's what's needed.

Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.

What preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way?

And in a picture I want to say something comforting, as music is comforting.