I feel the need of relations and friendship, of affection, of friendly intercourse.... I cannot miss these things without feeling, as does any other intelligent man, a void and a deep need.

In the fullness of artistic life there is, and remains, and will always come back at times, that homesick longing for the truly ideal life that can never come true.

And love makes one calmer about many things, and in that way, one is more fit for one's work.

I work as diligently on my canvases as the laborers do in their fields.

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.

Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.

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.