I must stay alone and know that I am alone to contemplate and feel nature in full.

You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.

All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it.

The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself. If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him.

The eye and fantasy feel more attracted by nebulous distance than by that which is close and distinct in front of us.

I must stay alone and know that I am alone to contemplate and feel nature in full; I have to surrender myself to what encircles me, I have to merge with my clouds and rocks in order to be what I am.

Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back, from without to within.

Every true work of art must express a distinct feeling.

The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art.

A painting which does not take its inspiration from the heart is nothing more than futile juggling.

The feelings of another person should never be imposed upon us as a law.

What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing you can do with words is to surrender to them.

He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Today a minimum wage earner has to work a day and a half just to pay for a full tank of gas. That is simply shameful.

I've never really had a hobby, unless you count art, which the IRS once told me I had to declare as a hobby since I hadn't made money with it.

"I'm going over the valley." (Dying from throat cancer, his doctor found him wandering around his room, asked him where was he going?)

Being born and raised as a Californian, I somewhat ignorantly had taken for granted the diversity and liberal mindset that shaped my childhood and adult life.

Sorry, Jesus, I have to curse!

I don't think there's any shortage of tough, sometimes vicious rhetoric about President Barack Obama coming from the right. Talk radio shows dominated by conservatives.

Love lent me wings; my path was like a stair; A lamp unto my feet, that sun was given; And death was safety and great joy to find; But dying now, I shall not climb to Heaven.

Even the heart in time may grow cold.