“Art's cruel. You can get away with murder with words. But a picture is like a window straight through to your inmost heart.”

“It’s rather like your voice. You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven’t any choice. But it’s what you say that counts. It’s what distinguishes all great art from the other kind.”

“He said, it's rather like your voice. You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven't any choice. But it's what you say that counts. It's what distinguishes all great art from the other kind.”

“You must make, always. You must act, if you believe something. Talking about acting is like boasting about pictures you're going to paint. The most terrible bad form.”

“He said, I suppose there are people who are purely moved by great art. I never met a painter who was. I'm not. All I think of when I see that picture is that it has the supreme mastery I have spent all my life trying to attain. And shall not. Ever.”

“I read and I read; and I was like a medieval king, I had fallen in love with the picture long before I saw the reality.”

“Why should I struggle through hundreds of pages of fabrication to reach half a dozen very little truths?''For fun?''Fun!' He pounced on the word. 'Words are for truth. For facts. Not fiction.”