256 Quotes by Henri Matisse

Cutting into color reminds me of the sculptor’s direct carving.

Don’t try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.

When you’re out of willpower you call on stubbornness, that’s the trick.

I’m growing old, I delight in the past.

Truly, I’m not joking when I thank my lucky stars for the awful operation I had, since it has made me young again and philosophical which means that I don’t want to fritter away the new lease on life I’ve been given.

Precision is not reality.

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.

What’s so astonishing about not understanding? There are so many things in art, beginning with art itself, that one doesn’t understand. A painter doesn’t see everything that he has put in his painting.

A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I’ve been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.