“One day Boudin said to me, ‘Learn to draw well and appreciate the sea, the light, the blue sky.’ I took his advice.”

I never draw except with brush and paint.

The effect of sincerity is to give one’s work the character of a protest. The painter, being concerned only with conveying his impression, simply seeks to be himself and no one else.

It’s the hardest thing to be alone in being satisfied with what one’s done.

The more I live, the more I regret how little i know.

One’s better off alone, and yet there are so many things that are impossible to fathom on one’s own. In fact it’s a terrible business and the task is a hard one.

If only the weather would improve, there’d be hope of some work, but every day brings rain.

All I did was to look at what the universe showed me, to let my brush bear witness to it.

Gardening was something I learned in my youth when I was unhappy. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

It is only too easy to catch people’s attention by doing something worse than anyone else has dared to do it before.

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 don’t turn to anyone for advice. I do what I want.

My advice for anyone who wants to follow in my footsteps: create your own path, hone your talent, be ready to show your talent, and don’t doubt yourself.

Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

Most of us are wiser than we may appear to be. On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one’s own advice.

If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.

You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town.

The best advice I have been given is to live in the moment, as cliché as that sounds. It’s crazy.

The hypocrite takes good advice as an insult.