To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating yourself endlessly.
Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.
Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.
Young people get the foolish idea that what is new for them must be new for everybody else too. No matter how unconventional they get, they're just repeating what others before them have done.
When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.
When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.
To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.
Creating is always so much more stimulating than destroying.
It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer.
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.
Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.
The arts (painting, poetry, etc.) are not just these arts. Eating, drinking, walking are also arts, every act is an art.