“There's no love without pain.”

“First, we think all truth is beautiful, no matter how hideous its face may seem. We accept all of nature, without any repudiation. We believe there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris. We think pain is good because it is the most profound of all human feelings. We think sex is beautiful even when portrayed by a harlot and a pimp. We put character above ugliness, pain above prettiness and hard, crude reality above all the wealth in France. We accept life in its entirety without making moral judgments. We think the prostitute is as good as the countess, the concierge as good as the general, the peasant as good as the cabinet minister, for they all fit into the pattern of nature and are woven into the design of life!”

“Cardinal Giovanni still did not like delicate matters; they were usually painful.”

“He had been standing still; for an artist, one of the more painful forms of death.”

“An artist without ideas is a mendicant; barren, he goes begging among the hours.”

“The most perfect guide is nature. Continue without fail to draw something every day.”

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