Don't Try To Be Original. Be Simple.

Truth And Reality In Art Begin At The Point Where The Artist Ceases To Understand What He Is Doing And Capable Of Doing - Yet Feels In Himself A Force That Becomes Steadily Stronger... And More Concentrated.

When I Eat A Tomato I Look At It The Way Anyone Else Would. But When I Paint A Tomato, Then I See It Differently.

I Don't Paint Women, I Paint Pictures. . . What I Am After Above All Is Expression. If In A Portrait I Put Eyes, A Nose, A Mouth, There Isn't Much Use; On The Contrary It Paralyses The Imagination Of The Spectator, And Obliges Us To See The Person In A Certain Way.

Slowly I Discovered The Secret Of My Art. It Consists Of A Meditation On Nature, On The Expression Of A Dream Which Is Always Inspired By Reality. With More Involvement And Regularity, I Learned To Push Each Study In A Certain Direction. Little By Little The Notion That Painting Is A Means Of Expression Asserted Itself, And That One Can Express The Same Thing In Several Ways. Exactitude Is Not Truth, Delacroix Liked To Say.

From Bonheur De Vivre - I Was Thirty-five Then - To This Cut-out - I Am Eighty-two - I Have Not Changed; Not In The Way My Friends Mean Who Want To Compliment Me, No Matter What, On My Good Health, But Because All This Time I Have Looked For The Same Things, Which I Have Perhaps Realized By Different Means.