There is often more psychic appeal in a so-called ugly woman than there is in a pretty one; and, in my ideal, I reconstruct her to bring that beauty … - André Derain

These Africans being primitive, uncomplex, uncultured, can express their thought by a direct appeal to the instinct. Their carvings are informed with emotions. So Nature gives me the material with which to construct a world of my own, governed, not by literal limitations, but by instinct and sentiment.

The Japanese see things that way. They don't paint sunlight, they don't cast shadows that perplex one and falsify the true shape of things. The Egyptian figures have simplicity, dignity, directness, unity; they express motion almost as if by a conventional formula, like writing itself, so direct it is. So I seek a logical method of rendering my idea.

I have found a boat, small with two sails, that would make me happy. Unfortunately, I need one hundred francs.. ..and I haven't got it! If you want, I could give you two canvases which you could sell, just to make you some many and you could give me the hundred francs.. .Kahnweiler [Paris' art-dealer] is the only one who gives me money, and just what we need to live on.