I can't paint the way they want me to paint and they know that too.

Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know.

Choose only one master - Nature.

Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses or kindnesses.

Without atmosphere a painting is nothing.

Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God.

Old age is a hindrance to creativity but cannot crush my youthful spirit.

An honest man always values earning honor over wealth.

A painting is finished when the artist says it is finished.

I envy the poet. He is encouraged toward drunkenness and wallows with nubile wenches while the painter must endure wretchedness and pain for his art.

A work is finished when an artist realizes his intentions.

I was brought up Catholic. I'm lapsed. From the age of three I was with the nuns. Now I'm an atheist.

...what she had been waiting to see on someone else's face was not empathy but the companionship of unmitigated suffering...

A knife wound heals, but a tongue wound festers.

The very best relationship has a gardener and a flower. The gardener nurtures and the flower blooms.

I have epiphanies all the time, because I'm always thinking. I'm a thinker. I'm always writing poetry, I'm always coming to conclusions.

The only thing worth doing is what's never been done before.

To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.

Art is the child of Nature.

The Gospel teaches us what Jesus' kingdom requires of us... Reminds us that closeness and tenderness are the rules of life.

I work as diligently on my canvases as the laborers do in their fields.