On the other hand, I am accused of not finishing my paintings, no matter how much time I spent to my airs. Well, 'finished' in the common sense of the word, they are certainly not! Finishing in that sense would drag the life out of it. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

As far as my work concerned, I am busy with a few small paintings, one is ordered and the other I have to 'adventure'. More and more I feel that I am short of so many studies, if I had the money, I didn't make any painting next year, I would only study [sketches]; but well, you have to make the best of a bad job, it will be hard enough to enable myself a living. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

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)

A painting is good if it is not finished. Just like ideas. Finished ideas are dead.. .Everything is floating, just as in life – also life will never get ready. (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

I used to paint some things a few times, but I stopped, because I didn't get an answer. If the work has nothing to say to somebody else, I quit. I am not an idiot who is talking to himself and gazing at the tip of his brush. Painting you do together. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

When entering a studio the most pleasant thing to see is a blank canvas. It looks so inviting to make a start, you are fresh and hoping for the best. Then a terrible time follows when everything seems lost and ruined, you fear you will never get it done, than suddenly a ray of light! And it seems you get what you wanted to tell. My best works usually are going trough such a struggle. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

And I painted on and on, coarsely - not skillful at all and rather clumsy.. (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love. There are simply different ways of doing it.

Once again I talked with some painters, but the modern artists [in The Netherlands ] write more than they paint. If you write about art in such a way and you want to paint always with a fixed plan, then you will lose completely the deep, glorious and spontaneous art. You always have to create the new from the very deep, inside. (translation from German, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

The drawings [his watercolors] usually succeed in one day or at most two days or they develop difficult and usually don't finish well, then.. ..[I hope] the end will be as good as the beginning. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

I do not know whether I shall make progress; but I should prefer to lack success rather than to lack faith.

Bosboom has just as anyone else fussed around things [paintings] from time to time to get his money. Only very few people can escape this.. .It is almost impossible that an artist who doesn't have the gift to work for the market as well, will always have to make good things. Because, when he has no money he has to earn it. And he will have to strain himself. For something he appreciates the least of all. He can never neglect this.. .The examples you can see everywhere. If you may write something about him [Bosboom] again, I hope you will take this into account too. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)

.Now nicely going on to work [painting] and much more free, and in particular more flowing. I hope to grow away from that rigid stuff. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

For example, in recent times I was looking to avoid in my works the greasy parts, which in the dark places [of the painting] are obstructing the material expression so heavily to appear. Rubbing with pumice and (the use of a lot of) oil I dispensed and then, look... like in my older works all details seem to appear much better, like in all the feathers of the crow; The job now has become much bigger, but no problem. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)