Claude Monet Quotes
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What could be said about me...a man to whom only his painting matters? And of course his garden and his flowers as well.
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One is too taken up with all that one sees and hears in Paris, however strong one is, and what I do here [in Etretat] will at least have the merit of being unlike anyone else, at least I believe so, because it will simply be the expression of what I, and only I, have felt.
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I'm very happy, very delighted. I'm setting to like a fighting cockerel, for I'm surrounded here by all that I love.
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I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.
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To have gone to all this trouble to get to this is just too stupid! Outside there's brilliant sunshine but I don't feel up to looking at it.
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For almost two months now I've been struggling away with no result.
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My life has been nothing but a failure.
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Perhaps it's true that I'm very hard on myself, but that's better than exhibiting mediocre work... too few were satisfactory enough to trouble the public with.
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My aim is to give you only the things with which I am completely satisfied, even if it means asking you a little more [time] for them... for if I were to do otherwise I'd turn into a mere painting machine and you would be landed with a pile of incomplete work which would put off the most enthusiastic of art collectors.
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I haven't many years left ahead of me and I must devote all my time to painting, in the hope of achieving something worthwhile in the end, something if possible that will satisfy me.
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Now, more than ever, I realize just how illusory my undeserved success has been. I still hold out some hope of doing better, but age and unhappiness have sapped my strength.
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While adding the finishing touches to a painting might appear insignificant, it is much harder to do than one might suppose.
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Take clear water with grass waving at the bottom. It's wonderful to look at, but to try to paint it is enough to make one insane.
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When I look at nature I feel as if I'll be able to paint it all, note it all down, and then you might as well forget it once you're working.
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If only the weather would improve, there'd be hope of some work, but every day brings rain.
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A good impression is lost so quickly.
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I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its way in that particular spot; and that is why I am working on the same motifs over and over again, four or six times even.
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I can only draw what I see.
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The point is to know how to use the colours, the choice of which is, when all's said and done, a matter of habit.
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If the world really looks like that I will paint no more!
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No, I'm not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet.
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I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting.
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Critic asks: 'And what, sir, is the subject matter of that painting?' - 'The subject matter, my dear good fellow, is the light.
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My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.