“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece”

My heart is forever in Giverny.

I do what I can to convey what I experience before nature and most often, in order to succeed in conveying what I feel, I totally forget the most elementary rules of painting, if they exist that is.

I’m never finished with my paintings; the further I get, the more I seek the impossible and the more powerless I feel.

Nothing in the whole world is of interest to me but my painting and my flowers.

Perhaps it’s true that I’m very hard on myself, but that’s better than exhibiting mediocre work… too few were satisfactory enough to trouble the public with.

I’ve only myself to blame for it, my impotence most of all and my weakness. If I do any good work now it will be only by chance.

I didn’t become an impressionist. As long as I can remember I always have been one.

I’m in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint.

These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.

Lots of people will protest that it’s quite unreal and that I’m out of my mind, but that’s just too bad.

I’m enjoying the most perfect tranquillity, free from all worries, and in consequence would like to stay this way forever, in a peaceful corner of the countryside like this.

Despite my extremely modest prices, dealers and art lovers are turning their backs on me. It is very depressing to see the lack of interest shown in an art object which has no market value.

I don’t think I’m made for any earthly kind of pleasure.

It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare.

The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.

Despite my exhaustion I have a devil of a time getting to sleep because of the rats above my bed and a pig who lives beneath my room.

Those persons who have perceptive eyes enjoy beauty everywhere.

Like the lotus flower that is born out of mud, we must honor the darkest parts of ourselves and the most painful of our life’s experiences, because they are what allow us to birth our most beautiful self.

Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.

Live authentically. Why would you continue to compromise something that’s beautiful to create something that is fake?

Prosperity isn’t defined by money alone; it encompasses time, love, success, joy, comfort, beauty, and wisdom.

There is such beauty lying in the subtle calling of the seconds, of the milliseconds, if you slow down enough to capture it.

There is no such thing as a summer body. Your beauty is not seasonal, it is perennial. Your body need not change for your skin to enjoy the sun.

The beautiful yet chaotic irony of it all is that; because of you, I lost myself, and yet, because of you, I found myself.