Vincent van Gogh — "I want to paint the impossible."

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart."

"I want to do figures, figures and more figures, it's stronger than me, this series of bipeds from the baby to Socrates and from the black-haired woman with white skin to the woman with yellow hair and…"

"I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize, and which we seek to convey by the actual radiance and vibration of our colouring."

"For the great doesn't happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together."

"There are two ways of looking at a thing: one way is to see it as an ugly, dull, miserable, uninteresting thing, another way is to see it as a beautiful, interesting, marvelous, and inspiring thing."