“I’ve been working so hard that I’m exhausted… I feel I won’t be able to do without a few weeks’ rest, so I’m going off to see the sea.”

I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found – the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible.

Now I really feel the landscape, I can be bold and include every tone of pink and blue: it’s enchanting, it’s delicious, and I hope it will please you.

It’s enough to drive you crazy, trying to depict the weather, the atmosphere, the ambience.

I let a good many mistakes show through when fixing my sensations. It will always be the same and this is what makes me despair.

Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.

A good impression is lost so quickly.

My only desire is an intimate infusion with nature, and the only fate I wish is to have worked and lived in harmony with her laws.

All of a sudden I had the revelation of how enchanting my pond was.

The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects.

The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.

I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It’s true that fretting never did any good.

I’m in a foul mood as I’m making stupid mistakes… This morning I lost beyond repair a painting with which I had been happy, having done about twenty sessions on it; it had to be thoroughly scraped away… what a rage I was in!

I’ve done what I could as a painter and that seems to me to be sufficient. I don’t want to be compared to the great masters of the past, and my painting is open to criticism; that’s enough.

No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.

I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting.

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

Exhaustion and exasperation are frequently the handmaidens of legislative decision.

A champion is someone who sweats to exhaustion, even when no one else is watching

Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion… the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.

Emily Dickinson provided four or more alternates for every word; Beethoven wrestled with endings to the point of exhaustion; in our day Jerome Robbins and his lack of decision are a byword in the dance profession.

The young moon has fed Her exhausted horn With the sunset’s fire.