The creation of a painting takes as much trickery and premeditation as the commitment of a crime. - Edgar Degas

Drawing is not the same as form; it is a way of seeing form.

In the office there are about fifteen people whose attention is directed toward a table covered with the costly fabric [raw cotton]; one man is bent over the table and another is sort of seating on it – the buyer and the broker are discussing a sample. A painting of a vernacular subject, if there is such a thing, and I think by a better hand than most others (a size 40 canvas, I think). I'm planning another less complicated and more surprising yet, better art, in which everyone is in summer dress, the walls white, and a sea of cotton on the tables. (translation based on M. Kay's, in M. Gérin [ed.] and M. Kay, transl. 'Degas letters', Oxford, 1947, pp. 29-30, no. 2

I have seen some very beautiful things through my anger, and what consoles me a little, is that through my anger I do not stop looking...