“There are no faster or firmer friendships than those formed between people who love the same books.”

“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 do not know a better cure for mental illness than a book.”

“Who loves — lives, who lives - works, and who works has some bread.”

“One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.”

“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.”

“There seemed to be that same fierce quest after truth, the same unafraid penetration, the same feeling that character is beauty, no matter how sordid it may appear.”