Claude Monet

I am absorbed in the study of nature, and together with the growth of my own abilities, my vision has grown ever wider.

I am working very hard, struggling with a series of different effects, but at this time of year the sun sets so fast I cannot follow it.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

I am painting... as a bird sings.

I am once again working on things that cannot be done... water with grass waving at the bottom. It is wonderful to see, but it is enough to drive you mad to want to do it.

I am not a great painter. I am only a conscientious worker.

One does not paint a landscape, a seascape, a figure. One paints an impression of an hour of the day.

I am finally beginning to understand nature a little, and it is my greatest wish to know it better and better.

My life has been nothing but a failure.

These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.

I am working stubbornly, I am struggling with the sun... what a difficult thing it is to render on canvas!

I am chasing the merest sliver of color. It is my own fault, I want to grasp the intangible. It is terrible how the light runs out, taking color with it.

The essence of the motif is the mirror of water whose appearance alters at every moment.

I am not performing miracles, I am using up and wasting a lot of paint...

I am in a black mood, and my painting shows it.

I am not a clever man, I know nothing but how to paint.

I am working very hard, almost to the point of making myself ill, in order to finish my decorations.

The point is to know how to use the colors, the choice of which is, when all's said and done, a matter of habit.

I am always seeking to render the effects of light on objects.

I am painting the impossible.