There is nothing new under the sun, not even Manet.

The wretched beings depicted by Millet touch us profoundly because he loved them profoundly. They have nothing in common with vulgar ugliness. Beauty will always remain the highest aim of art.

I have always had a passion for the beautiful. If the man in me is often a pessimist, the artist, on the contrary, is pre-eminently an optimist.

I had not yet acquired the experience which gives modesty.

The artist should not be satisfied to only play the part of a mirror.

The true is not material reality only.

Failures plagued me. Things I had omitted or ignored, neglected. What I should have given and hadn’t. I felt the biting pang of every unfulfillment.

Once you wake up thought in a man you can never put it to sleep again.

He who keeps his cool best wins.

Any systems approaching perfect self-control also approaches perfect self-frustration.

I have been running so sweaty my whole life Urgent for a finish line And I have been missing the rapture this whole time Of being forever incomplete

Language exists to communicate whatever it can communicate. Some things it communicates so badly that we never attempt to communicate them by words if any other medium is available.

Very rarely do people make big compromises with their integrity. Almost every compromise is a small one that is easily justified. The downhill slide is usually a result of many little compromises.

By the time I was in my early-twenties and was living there on the Lower East Side, I was so surrounded by tragedy that I think that inspired me to try to reflect it in the artwork.

The founder of every creed from Jesus Christ to Karl Marx, would be appalled to return to earth and see what has been made of that creed, not by its enemies, but by its most devoted adherents.

Could my griefs speak, the tale would have no end.