“I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to settle themselves in my brain.”

Never, even as a child, would I bend to a rule.

It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.

For me, the subject is of secondary importance: I want to convey what is alive between me and the subject.

I work at my garden all the time and with love. What I need most are flowers, always. My heart is forever in Giverny.

I still have a lot of pleasure doing them, but as time goes by I come to appreciate more clearly which paintings are good and which should be discarded.

Everything changes, even stone.

Light is the most important person in the picture.

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

Impressionism is only direct sensation. All great painters were less or more impressionists. It is mainly a question of instinct, and much simpler than [John Singer] Sargent thinks.

I still don’t know where I am going to sleep tomorrow.

When I look at nature I feel as if I’ll be able to paint it all, note it all down, and then you might as well forget it once you’re working.

Without the fog, London would not be a beautiful city. It is fog that gives it its magnificent amplitude its regular and massive blocks become grandiose in that mysterious mantle.

It took me time to understand my water lilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them.

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

The real subject of every painting is light.

For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at any moment.

My brain cannot process failure. It will not process failure

The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.

It is scary how easily so many people can be brainwashed by sheer repetition of a word.

Those who are clever, who have a brain, never understand anything.

The brain is a muscle that can move the world.

If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. And when you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.

Only fools use their mouth to speak. A smart man uses his brain, and a wise man uses his heart.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.