“Nature always resists the artist at the beginning.”

“The modern artist, by nature and destiny, is always an individualist.”

“The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.”

“But you will tell me this is an inartistic age, and we are an inartistic people, and the artist suffers much in this nineteenth century of ours. Of course he does. I, of all men, am not going to deny that. But remember that there has never been an artistic age, or an artistic people since the beginning of the world. The artist has always been, and will always be, an exquisite exception.”

“How should an artist begin to do his work as an artist? I would insist that he begin his work as an artist by setting out to make a work of art.”

“The resistance and the degree of the resistance to the natural phenomenon of life causes tremendous suffering.”