“Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.”

“You have a masterpiece inside you, you know. One unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be. If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you.”

“Art begins with resistance—at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.”

“If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself.”

“Anyone can put paint on a canvas, but only a true master can bring the painting to life. Anyone can kill, but only a genius can make murder an art.”

“Part of the problem [with Picasso's fame] lies with the artist himself - at that point when Picasso stopped making art and began making Picassos...it is a potentially fatal side-effect of success for any artist... Would it be a parody of modernism's self-referentiality to describe this point as one where the artist stops thinking like an artist and starts [painting] like an art historian?”