"It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory."

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

"Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty."

"Art is vice. You don't marry it legitimately, you rape it."

"Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."

"In painting you must give the idea of the true by means of the false."

"What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming."

"No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters."