"Sometimes I miss out the morning's painting session and instead study my Japanese books in the open."

"There is nothing that special to see when looking at me. I'm a painter who paints day in day out, from morning till evening - figure pictures and landscapes, more rarely portraits."

"Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company."

"It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself."

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."

"Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society."