I have tried to present my sensations in what is the most congenial and impressive form possible to me.

I use a retouching varnish which is made in France, Libert, and that's all the varnish I use.

There is a sort of elation about sunlight on the upper part of a house.

Maybe I am not very human - what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.

In its most limited sense, modern, art would seem to concern itself only with the technical innovations of the period.

The trend in some of the contemporary movements in art, but by no means all, seems to deny this ideal and to me appears to lead to a purely decorative conception of painting.

No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination.

My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impression of nature.

After all, we are not French and never can be, and any attempt to be so is to deny our inheritance and to try to impose upon ourselves a character that can be nothing but a veneer upon the surface.

If the technical innovations of the Impressionists led merely to a more accurate representation of nature, it was perhaps of not much value in enlarging their powers of expression.

The question of the value of nationality in art is perhaps unsolvable.

What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.

If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.

If I had the energy, I would have done it all over the county.

Well, I have a very simple method of painting.

More of me comes out when I improvise.

I have tried to present my sensations in what is the most congenial and impressive form possible to me.

I trust Winsor and Newton and I paint directly upon it.

Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature's phenomena before it can again become great.

I believe that the great painters with their intellect as master have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions.

Well, I've always been interested in approaching a big city in a train, and I can't exactly describe the sensations, but they're entirely human and perhaps have nothing to do with aesthetics.

Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.

In general it can be said that a nation's art is greatest when it most reflects the character of its people.

I find linseed oil and white lead the most satisfactory mediums.

I find in working always the disturbing intrusion of elements not a part of my most interested vision, and the inevitable obliteration and replacement of this vision by the work itself as it proceeds.

I think that zinc white has a property of scaling and cracking.

It's to paint directly on the canvas without any funny business, as it were, and I use almost pure turpentine to start with, adding oil as I go along until the medium becomes pure oil. I use as little oil as I can possibly help, and that's my method.

The only real influence I've ever had was myself.

If the picture needs varnishing later, I allow a restorer to do that, if there's any restoring necessary.

There will be, I think, an attempt to grasp again the surprise and accidents of nature and a more intimate and sympathetic study of its moods, together with a renewed wonder and humility on the part of such as are still capable of these basic reactions.

Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.

The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.

Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.

Crying over what's gone won't find the present.

The French are the wittiest, the most charming, and up to the present, at all events, the least musical race on Earth.

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were apt to make great allowances for people with empty stomachs, and though I am well aware that the present profane ones think this very reprehensible, I venture to agree with the sacred writers.

It also allows you to look as though you're not particularly from the present, future or past, either.

And for myself, I think for the present He is calling me to another land; but how long shall be my abode, or what employment He has for me there, I know not, for I cannot think He is taking me there to live and lurk only.

It is my intention to present - through the medium of photography - intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.

I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.

The present government is very insistent that business sponsorship should replace government sponsorship of the arts. Business sponsorship won't happen unless you make tax concessions, which they won't.

All this happens without him knowing - they actually install cameras in his apartment and hire this girl to get him to fall in love with her so that she can be in the apartment and present him products without him knowing.

The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

My future is in my past and my past is my present. I must now make the present my future.