As far as outdoor work is concerned, a studio is only a garage; a place in which to store pictures and repair them, never a place in which to paint them.

No, mes amis, impressionism is not charlatanry, nor a formula, nor a school. I should say rather it is the bold resolve to throw all those things overboard.

All inspired painters are impressionists, even though it be true that some impressionists are not inspired.

I could not paint at all if I had to paint slowly. Every effect is so transient, it must be rapidly painted.

My only ambition was to create an honest picture that would interpret nature as she really is, as she ought to be seen.

Go to nature with no parti pris. You should not know what your picture is to look like until it is done. Just see the picture that is coming.

If ever a painter wrought a miracle of illusion with brush and pigment that painter was Velazquez in his Las Meninas, at the Prado in Madrid.

I do not care to paint portraits indoors. I cannot feel sympathetic.

The older I become, the more I realize that drawing is the most important of all the problems of picture-making.

With all its excesses, the modern impressionistic movement has given us one discovery, the color violet. It is the only discovery of importance in the art world since Velazquez.

How long did it take me to delimit this art? Twenty years! ... It was a laborious process, but a methodical and rational one; gradually the hesitations were ironed out, but not all of a sudden.

Condemnation feels good and it is now a staple of religion, politics, and the media (both left and right), but it changes nothing. Compassion, on the other hand, changes everything. (p. 121)

If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

I plan on doing a lot more work on my own, and discovering and doing more.

I didn't go through anyone's garbage. People brought what they felt I needed to know to me.

It’s very hard to be an innovator at the highest level in any discipline. For some chefs it’s merely about combining ingredients, but that’s something you can do with your eyes closed.

Pain is a message asking for our help.

I think it's part of everybody's childhood, there are some wonderful Hammer movies and there are some dreadful ones.

The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it.

The land wants you here. I want you here," you called. "Don't you care about that at all?

My father was a boxer, though. So, I have a particular interest in Ray Mancini, I think.