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.
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’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.
Pictures aren’t made out of doctrines. Since the appearance of impressionism, the official salons, which used to be brown, have become blue, green, and red…But peppermint or chocolate, they are still confections.
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.
Getting up at 4 in the morning, I slave away all day until by the evening I’m exhausted, and I end by forgetting all my responsibilities, thinking only of the work I’ve set out to do.
