I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.
Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves they have a better idea.
I dream my painting and then I paint my dream.
A painter who has the feel of breasts and buttocks is saved.
To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano.
Buy old masters. They fetch a better price than old mistresses.
I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.
I'm completely aware of Matisse and what he said, that painters must begin by cutting out their tongues.
Some day they will know what I mean.
Sir when their backsides look good enough to slap there's nothing more to do.
I paint from the top down. First the sky then the mountains then the hills then the houses then the cattle and then the people.
Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.
The idea is in my head to put it down is nothing.
For me painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night a strangled laugh.
A good painter is to paint two main things namely men and the working of man's mind.
There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.
His hero Millet had admonished. Auguste Renoir had told him. Ah, but what they hadn't said, hadn't warned him about, was you could see.
When I look at a painting it isn't only the painting that I see but the thing that I am. If there is more in the painting than I am then I won't see it.
There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can't stand Picasso those who can't stand Raphael and those who've never heard of either of them.
I hope with all my heart there will be painting in heaven.