They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph.

It took me twenty years to discover painting: twenty years looking at nature, and above all, going to the Louvre.

To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.

Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art.

One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of Impressionism.

When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished.

Work lovingly done is the secret of all order and all happiness.

Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.

One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity.

Photography freed painting from a lot of tiresome chores, starting with family portraits.

Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art.

No matter how many failures and disappointments that you have encountered lately, never stop believing in yourself. You still have endless success left in you.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

As far as pets go, a cat is a nice on to have.

You know what I always say about basketball whenever anybody tried to tell me the Knicks are gonna be good: They're old. Old people don't get healthy. They die.

When you let go of your attention for a little while, do not think you may recover it whenever you please.

Some reproaches praise; some praises reproach.

Good or bad, the one thing I can say about my art is, if I can quote Sinatra, I did it my way.

Everyone has flaws. It's a matter of finding the ones you can live with.

Clinton, Kennedy, they all carried out mass murder, but they didn't think that that was what they were doing - nor does Bush. You know, they were defending justice and democracy from greater evils.

To the extent that these [New Deal policies] developed, they were tortured interpretations of a document [the Constitution] intended to prevent them.