Henri Matisse

I'm growing old, I delight in the past.

I have been no more than a medium, as it were.

He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back.

An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.

In love, the one who runs away is the winner.

Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.

You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.

It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.

I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it.

Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

A young woman has young claws, well sharpened. If she has character, that is. And if she hasn't so much the worse for you.