"I'm not making a point of it, because the painting is one of the ugliest I've done. It's the equivalent, though different, of the potato eaters. I've tried to express the terrible human passions with …"

"I am not an artist, I am a worker."

"I've never felt a desire (and I don't believe I ever shall) to bring the public to my work... a certain popularity seems to me the least desirable of things."

"Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempte…"

"You know that Jeannin has the peony, Quost has the hollyhock, but I have the sunflower, in a way."