"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?"

"Believe me that sometimes I laugh heartily because people suspect me of all kinds of malignity and absurdity, of which not a hair of my head is guilty — I, who am really no one but a friend of nature,…"

"When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion, then I go out and paint the stars."

"One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way."

"Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me."