"ladies in muslin draped on porches at the fronts of their little houses.. ..shops bursting with fruit, and the contrast between the lively hum and the bustle of the offices with the immense black animal force.. .The black world I have not the time to explore; there are some real gifts of colour and drawing in these forests of ebony. It will seem amazing to live among white people when I get back to Paris. I love silhouettes so much, and these silhouettes walk."

“I remember a story my father used to tell. As he was coming home one day, he ran across a group of men who were firing on the troops from an ambush. During the excitement a daring onlooker went up to one of the snipers who seemed to be a poor marksman. He took the man's gun and brought down a soldier, then handed it back to its owner who motioned as if to say, 'No, go on. You're a better shot than I am.' But the stranger said, 'No, I'm not interested in politics.'”

“There is a kind of success that is indistinguishable from panic.”

“Poor Gauguin, 'way off there on his island! I'll wager he spends most of his time thinking of Rue Lafitte. I advised him to go to New Orleans, but he decided it was too civilized. He had to have people around him with flowers on their heads and rings in their noses before he could feel at home. Now if I should leave my house for more than two days...”

“I always urged my contemporaries to look for interest and inspiration to the development and study of drawing, but they would not listen. They thought the road to salvation lay by the way of colour.”

“Everybody has talent at twenty-five. The difficult thing is to have it at fifty.”

“Women can never forgive me; they hate me, they feel I am disarming them. I show them without their coquetry.”