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 see drawings and pictures in the poorest huts, in the dirtiest corner. And my mind is drawn toward these things by an irresistible force.

I feel a certain calm. There is safety in the midst of danger. What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

One must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with.

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!

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.

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.