“Being mad is even pleasant. But only a madman understands that.”

“To try to understand another human being, to grapple for his ultimate depths, that is the most dangerous of human endeavors.”

“Only now, years after having read though the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Scott, Poe, Balzac did he realise that even the most prolific writer created only one novel; throw away the individual bindings and the whole of each man's writing constituted one book: the true and complete portrait of himself. An artist had one thing to say, and one only; he might flail about, seek new techniques, forms, colour combinations, subjects, but intrinsically he would always paint the same canvas, write the same book.”

“I cannot draw a human figure if I don't know the order of his bones, muscles or tendons. Same is that I cannot draw a human face if I don't know what's going on his mind and heart. In order to paint life one must understand not only anatomy, but what people feel and think about the world they live in. The painter who knows his own craft and nothing else will turn out to be a very superficial artist.”

“Only suffering grows big artists.”

“The brooding is better than the joy because even if the heart fills with happiness, it still mourns.”

“Fortune is beastly — it is only suitable for cows and businessmen.”