“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’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.

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.

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.

They’re powerful, those songs. At times they’ve been my only way back, the only door out of the dark, bad places the black dog calls home.

Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are.

I think by the time you’re grown you’re as happy as you’re goin to be. You’ll have good times and bad times, but in the end you’ll be about as happy as you was before. Or as unhappy. I’ve knowed people that just never did get the hang of it.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it.

Every person I killed I strongly believe that they were bad. When I do go face God there is going to be lots of things I will have to account for but killing any of those people is not one of them.

My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, He has done such a bad job that he isn’t worth discussing.