There is, in a apple, in a head, a culminating point, and this point - in spite of the effect, the tremendous effect: shadow or light, sensations of … - Paul Cézanne

Alas, because I'm no longer innocent. We're civilized beings. Whether we like it or not, we have the cares and concerns of classical civilization in our bones. I want to express myself clearly when I paint. In people who feign ignorance there is a kind of barbarism even more detestable than the academic kind: it's no longer possible to be ignorant today. One no longer is. We come into the world armed with facility. Facility is the death of art and we must rid ourselves of it.

I was very pleased with myself when I discovered that sunlight could not be reproduced; it had to be represented by something else.. ..by colour.

This will be my picture, the one I shall leave behind.. .But the center? Where is the center? I can't find the center.. .Tell me, what shall I group it all around? Ah, Poussin's arabesque! He knew all about that. In the London 'Bacchanal', in the Louvre 'Flora' (both are paintings of Poussin, admired by Cézanne), where does the line of the figures and the landscape begin, where does it finish.. ..It's all one. There is no center. Personally I would like something like a hole, a ray of light, an invisible sun to keep an eye on my figures, to bathe them, care them, intensify them.. ..in the middle [remark on one of his paintings ['The Bathers]']