..My paintings are a heap of shit, but better than Modigliani, Marc Chagall, and Krémènge [a Russian companion painter]. Some day I will destroy my c… - Chaïm Soutine

You don't like my painting, you only want to help me. If you had given me one franc for my picture I would have taken it [when M. Castaing discovered his art for the very first time and offered him in advance 100 franc to make a new painting - circa 1917 – 1919]

Once I saw the village butcher [in his youth, in Russia] slice the neck of a bird and drain the blood out of it. I wanted to cry out, but his joyful expression caught the sound in my throat.. .This cry, I always feel it there. When, as a I drew a crude portrait of my professor, I tried to rid myself of this cry, but in vain. When I painted the beef carcass it was still this cry that I wanted to liberate. I have still not succeeded. [remark to his friend and biographer]

Ah, the giant that is Rembrandt; he's God, he's God!