I always entreat the good Lord to give me my childhood back, that is to say, to grant that I may see nature and render it like a child, without prejudice.

Be guided by feelings alone. Abandon yourself to your first impression. If you really have been touched, you will convey to others the sincerity of your emotion.

Never lose the first impression which has moved you.

I work on all parts of my painting at once, improving it very gently until I find that the effect is complete.

Don't imitate, don't follow the others, or else you will lag behind them.

Art is nature as seen through a temperament.

...Art itself may be defined as a single minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect.

The most important things in a painting are Form and Value. Color comes last - like a friend you welcome.

The first things to study are form and values. For me, these are the things that are the basics of what is serious in art.

It is better to be nothing than a follower of other painters. The wise man has said when one follows another one is always behind.

Be guided by feeling alone. We are only simple mortals, subject to error...

You can't judge the present by the past. Each day is different, and you live it differently.

I speak the unseen into seeing and I can feel it, this steady breathing in the rhythm of grace--'give thanks (in), give thanks (out)'.

Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. But it doesn't do much for women, though we do have an advantage: make-up.

The essence of true friendship, in my view, is to make allowances for one another's little lapses.

Reading is such a personal thing to me. I'd much rather give someone a gift certificate to a bookstore, and let that person choose his or her own books.

Next to the wicked lives of men, nothing is so great a disparagement and weakening to religion as the divisions of Christians.

If you want to write, you have to be willing to be disturbed.

Sometimes you walk out of an audition and you kind of know you nailed it and you're probably going to book it, but you very rarely are told in the room by the people who are hiring you.

This present universe is the Kingdom of Heaven, and all we do is to clear away our misconception of it until we see It as It really is.

A sigh is an amplifier for people who suffer in silence.