I want to be famous but unknown!

You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.

Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty.

I put it (a still life of a pear, made by Manet, ed.) there (on the wall, next to Ingres' Jupiter, ed.), for a pear like that would overthrow any god.

I should like to be famous and unknown.

A painting is above all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy. If, at a later stage, he wants to add two or three touches from nature, of course it doesn't spoil anything.

It seems to me that today if the artist wishes to be serious... he must once more sink himself in solitude.

We were created to look at one another, weren't we?