What makes sovereign ugliness are our conventions.

If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us.

Everyone knows that yellow, orange, and red suggest ideas of joy and plenty. I can paint you the skin of Venus with mud, provided you let me surround it as I will.

A picture is nothing but a bridge between the soul of the artist and that of the spectator.

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.

We work not only to produce, but to give value to time.

Talent does whatever it wants to do. Genius does only what it can.

One never paints violently enough.

Seeing artistically does not happen automatically. We must constantly develop our powers of observation.

A fine suggestion, a sketch with great feeling, can be as expressive as the most finished product.

What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.

One should be a painter. As a writer, I feel the beauty, which is almost entirely colour, very subtle, very changeable, running over my pen, as if you poured a large jug of champagne over a hairpin.

In order to have creativity, you have to allow for dead ends to happen.

Learn to overcome the imprinting that you now have and gain a new and higher imprinting that will lead you into the luminous spheres of awareness.

You mistake patience for forbearance.

I had twins, so it was really uncomfortable [to sleep], because you lay on one side, and there's a baby, and you lay on the other side and there's a baby. So I had a really hard time with it.

It is the opener of the heart of God, and a means by which the soul, though empty, is filled.

It's hard to live a full life without love.

Feelings and emotions are only the creation of mind and energy. Love is the creation of the soul.

A standing army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the liberties of the people. Such power should be watched with a jealous eye.

These are your beautiful days, Julia Beckett," he promised softly.