No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.

The Seine. I have painted it all my life, at all hours of the day, at all times of the year, from Paris to the sea…Argenteuil, Poissy, Vétheuil, Giverny, Rouen, Le Havre.

I am pleased with the exhibition... everything on display was sold for a good price to decent people. It has been a long time since I believed that you could educate public taste.

A good impression is lost so quickly.

No, I'm not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet.

Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.

Despite my extremely modest prices, dealers and art lovers are turning their backs on me. It is very depressing to see the lack of interest shown in an art object which has no market value.

I pass my time in the open air on the beach when it is really heavy weather or when the boats go out fishing.

I will do water -- beautiful, blue water.

I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

I'm continuing to work hard, not without periods of discouragement, but my strength comes back again.

Try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, 'Here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow,' and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives you your own impression of the scene before you.

My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.

No one but myself knows the anxiety I go through and the trouble I give myself to finish paintings which do not satisfy me and seem to please so very few others.

I despise the opinion of the press and the so-called critics.

Pictures aren't made out of doctrines. Since the appearance of impressionism, the official salons, which used to be brown, have become blue, green, and red...But peppermint or chocolate, they are still confections.

I didn't become an impressionist. As long as I can remember I always have been one.

I am very depressed and deeply disgusted with painting. It is really a continual torture.

One's better off alone, and yet there are so many things that are impossible to fathom on one's own. In fact it's a terrible business and the task is a hard one.

All of a sudden I had the revelation of how enchanting my pond was.