I began to understand my sensations, to know what I wanted, at around the age of forty - but only vaguely.

I remember that, although I was full of fervour, I didn't have the slightest inkling, even at forty, of the deeper side to the movement we were pursuing by instinct. It was in the air!

I regard it as a waste of time to think only of selling: one forgets one's art and exaggerates one's value.

It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.

Observe that it is a great error to believe that all mediums of art are not closely tied to their time.

At fifty, that is in 1880, I formulated the idea of unity, without being able to render it. At sixty, I am beginning to see the possibility of rendering it.