“A great artist is never poor.”

“Then Martine said: "So yuo will be poor now all your life, Babette?"Poor?" said Babette. She smiled as if to herself. "No, I shall never be poor. I told you that I am a great artist. A great artist, Mesdames, is never poor.We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing.”

“The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.”

“A little artist has all the tragic unhappiness and the sorrows of a great artist and he is not a great artist.”

“Thackeray's a good writer and Flaubert is a great artist. Trollope is a good writer and Dickens is a great artist. Colette is a very good writer and Proust is a great artist. Katherine Anne Porter was an extremely good writer and Willa Cather was a great artist.”

“Not anyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”