"Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love."
- Claude Monet

"Don't proceed according to rules and principles, but paint what you observe and feel. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression."
- Camille Pissarro

"A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people."
- Edgar Degas

"For me a painting should be something to cherish, joyous and pretty - yes, pretty! There are enough annoying things in life without our creating new ones."
- Auguste Renoir

"Try to forget what object you have before you - a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here is an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow…"
- Claude Monet