"People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind as surgeons are to their bodily pains."

"There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person."

"By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece."

"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."

"The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion."

"'My country, right or wrong,' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.'"

"The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity."

"I shut my eyes in order to see."

"All art is an imitation of nature."

"I know just how frustrating it can be when you're tired and exhausted, but you still want to draw something."

"Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before."

"What I dream of is an art of balance."