"This project is very much up in the air. Degas' perversity makes it almost impossible of realization; there are clashes of vanity in this little group that make any understanding difficult. It seems to me that I am the only one without any pettiness of character. This makes up for my inferiority as a painter.. ..the truth is that our value lies in feeling, in intuition, in our vision that is subtler than that of men, and we can accomplish a great deal provided that affectation, pedantry and sentimentalism do not come to spoil everything."

“Music and painting should never be literary, a very subtle distinction according to Renoir. As soon as I try to represent an individual, their physiognomy and attitudes, I become a literary artist.”

“He is a subtle and brilliant draughtsman.. ..all these preliminary drawings would astonish the public who obviously imagine the 'Impressionists' work at tremendous speed. I don't believe one can go further than this in the study of form in a drawing. I am charmed by his 'Nude Bathers' quite as much as those by Ingres. He tells me that he thinks the nude is absolutely indispensable as an art form.”

“I do not think any man would ever treat a woman as his equal, and it is all I ask because I know my worth.”

“Your phrase: 'I am working hard at growing old', is absolutely me. What if you were always to speak in my place..”

“I say, 'I should like to die', but that's not true at all, I should like to get younger.. ..youth and old age are similar in more ways than one, and they are the two moments in life when one can feel one's own soul which would be a proof that it exists.”

“The tall fellow Bazille has done something I find quite fine: a young girl in a very light dress in the shadow of a tree beyond which one sees a town. There is a good deal of light, sunlight, He is trying to do what we have so often tried to bring off: to paint a figure in the open air. This time I think he has succeed.”