When I write these notes, it is not to describe my own life. I am writing a study of the soul as I observe myself closely and use myself as an anatom… - Edvard Munch

The point is that one sees things at different moments with different eyes. Differently in the morning then in the evening. The way in which one sees also depends on one's mood.. ..coming in from a dark bedroom in the morning into the sitting room one will, for example, see everything in a bluish light. Even the deepest shadows are topped with bright light. After a while one will accustom oneself to the light and the shadows will be deeper and everything will be seen more sharply. If an atmosphere of this kind is being painted it won't do merely to sit and gaze at everything 'just as one sees'. One must paint precisely the fleeting moment of significance – one must capture the exact experience separating that significant moment from the next – the exact moment when the motif struck one.. .In some circumstances a chair may seem to be just as interesting as a human being. In some way or another it must have caught the interest in which case the onlooker's interest must somehow be engaged in the same way. It's not the chair that should be painted, but what the person has felt at the sight of it [written in Saint Cloud, 1890 - probably related to the chair of Vincent van Gogh

It was the period I think of as the age of the pillow.. .What I wanted to bring out - is that which cannot be measured - I wanted to bring out the tired movement in the eyelids - the lips must look as though they are whispering - she must look as though she is breathing - I want life - what is alive. [on his painting 'The sick Child']

I was walking along a path with two friends — the sun was setting — suddenly the sky turned blood red — I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence — there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety — and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.