version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) Hoe verder ik kom, hoe meer ik aan het begin sta. Ik bin Benner, mar ik zeg niet ik ben-er.

I am not a man of production, I am not a manufacturer. (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

I love Friesland, but I don't feel myself a Frisian. I am a human being, be called Gerrit Benner, who paints.. (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

What is life difficult and cumbersome, and what hard work it is to fathom one's own thoughts, feelings really truthfully - to purify and to place them behind each other. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

In the works I paint [now] I can't see any guarantee that I shall make progress.. ..while better skilled people [artists] - even though their work does not seem so good at the moment - can move forward much more easily. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)

I paint from my head [about his move from rural Friesland to the city of Amsterdam]. (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

I was done justice and I appreciated it. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

..every day I can benefit from Mr. B [his teacher, Van de Sande Bakhuyzen ] is another profit.. ..day by day my ambition is growing. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) Ik ben niet een man van productie, ik ben geen fabrikant.

You cannot know at all what will comes out of you because all your knowledge is running otherwise. What you do not know and what you thought that there would not come at all, that comes out and appears at once, sometimes with a curse and a sigh, and there you have it. - Everything ends well. I made things that I had forgotten for twenty five years. At first I knew them too well, but then I forgot them, I 'had to' forget them. And then I made them. - If some work does not becomes beautiful, well, then you go back to do something else. Worrying doesn't help at all. It will be better later? No, you should not say such things, because you don't know anything about 'becoming better'. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

Maybe you don't know enough about the facts - I mean my life history. Probably you can discover everything in my works well enough, but.. .. perhaps it would be good if I visit you some evening, or you, or you two, for some days here with me [in Bergen ]. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

I wonder [interviewer: I hear him saying quite soon] or that line [in the picture he is just working on] doesn't repeat itself. It's more or less the same, isn't it? on both sides, don't you think so? [(interviewer) 'Maybe it is!' - I dare to say; there is no escape; I have to give advice] (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) Ik hou van Friesland, maar ik voel me geen Fries. Ik ben een mens, die Gerrit Benner heet, die schildert..

Take care for this, don't start with the sentiment first, [because] that's where a piece of art is ending with - but the good start is drawing good and right. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)