“A good impression is lost so quickly.”

I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It’s true that fretting never did any good.

I’m in a foul mood as I’m making stupid mistakes… This morning I lost beyond repair a painting with which I had been happy, having done about twenty sessions on it; it had to be thoroughly scraped away… what a rage I was in!

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.

No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.

I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting.

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

I am enslaved to my work, always wanting the impossible, and never, I believe, have I been less favoured by the endlessly changeable weather.

To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.

I can only draw what I see.

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.

I must have flowers, always, and always.

I’m not performing miracles, I’m using up and wasting a lot of paint.

Thanks to my work everything’s going well; it’s a great consolation.

If the world really looks like that I will paint no more!

My eyes were finally opened and I understood nature. I learned at the same time to love it.

I had so much fire in me and so many plans.

If we think something is not good, we’ll openly say it. If there’s choreography, for example, and it feels like it’s going to be too taxing on our physical resources – as I said, we’re not getting any younger – we’ll say so, and then we’ll make those changes.

Do good, be good and see good. Do everything with love.

You must look for the good in people to have more of it appear. As you look only for the good things in a person, you will be amazed at what your new focus reveals.

Kind words and good deeds are eternal. You never know where their influence will end.

People are good. No matter what. Beneath the rage and fear lies a wounded heart. We must do what we can do to heal it.

I don’t think I’m a bad guy from Dagestan. I think I’m a good guy from Dagestan. But for my opponents, for sure, I’m a bad guy because when I go to the cage every time, I smash my opponents.

When you make feeling good a priority, that magnificent frequency will radiate and touch everyone close to you.

Barack Obama makes me feel good to be a black man.