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

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.

I’m working hard with more determination than ever. My success at the Salon led to my selling several paintings and since your absence I have made 800 francs; I hope, when I have contracts with more dealers, it will be better still.

As for myself, I met with as much success as I ever could have wanted. In other words, I was enthusiastically run-down by every critic of the period.

My life has been nothing but a failure.

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

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

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.

One can do something if one can see and understand it.

If I dreamt this, while walking, walking in the London streets, the subconscious of each and every other life, past and present, brushing me in passing, what makes it real? Writing it down.

It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or embittered to recognise from day to day.

I take the most wrenchingly painful moments of my life, brush them off and present them for the amusement of others. Luckily for me, my childhood was torture.

Ay Dad, brush my hair one time. Hey pops! Come brush my hair.

We never pick up a brush and stand in front of our own easel.

Life gets so ridiculous, you just have to brush it off like sand and laugh. I think the laughter is good medicine for crap-itis.

Just as I work with paints, brushes, and canvas, I work with the light, pieces of glass and chemistry.

I don’t have a daily routine, beyond brushing my teeth. It changes every day.