One begins by plaguing oneself to no purpose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by working quietly from one's own palette alone, and then nature is the result.

I believe it is one's duty to paint the rich and magnificent aspects of nature. We need gaiety and happiness, hope and love.

Painting demands an intelligent model.

Christ is more of an artist than the artists; he works in the living spirit and the living flesh, he makes men instead of statues.

Let me stop there, but my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.

And painted portraits have a life of their own that comes from deep in the soul of the painter and where the machine can't go.

...to look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?