“Take clear water with grass waving at the bottom. It’s wonderful to look at, but to try to paint it is enough to make one insane.”

I despise the opinion of the press and the so-called critics.

I’ve said it before and can only repeat that I owe everything to Boudin and I attribute my success to him. I came to be fascinated by his studies, the products of what I call instantaneity.

I would advise young artists to paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly.

What I need most of all is color, always, always.

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.

The artist shall never run out of paint. Because the artist, my love, never runs out of pain.

When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don’t. I have a knack for disturbing.

A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.

In a painting, you can’t make out whether the artist painted the left eye before the right eye. In Chinese calligraphy, you can see the progression of the artist’s stroke.

Painters and poets have liberty to lie.

My sky is too blue for me to be scared of people painting it a little grey.

If you are a painter my love, then I will be your writer.

We live in a world that is like art painted by the light in so many colors.