What I have suffered you cannot imagine. But what I'm going through [circa 1878] now is even worse, much more so than when I was young.. ..because no… - Camille Pissarro

I have had a long talk with Renoir. He admitted that the whole crowd – Durand and his former admirers – were shouting at him, deploring his attempt to abandon his 'Romantic' period. He seems very sensitive to what we think of his exhibition. I told him that as far as we were concerned, the search for unity should be the aim of every intelligent artist. – that even in spite of serious faults, it was more intelligent and artistic than wallowing in romanticism.

Work is a wonderful regulator of mind and body. I forget all sorrow, grief, bitterness, and I even ignore them altogether in the joy of working.

It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.. .So much the better if it is painful for you to take even the first step, the more toilsome the work, the stronger you will emerge from it.. .I repeat, guard against facility.