Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Quotes

I paint things as they are. I don't comment. I record.

I have tried to do what is true and not ideal.

In our time there are many artists who do something because it is new; they see their value and their justification in this newness. They are deceiving themselves; novelty is seldom the essential. This has to do with one thing only; making a subject better from its intrinsic nature.

Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly, that you feel you could die of it!

Only the human figure exists; landscape is, and should be, no more than an accessory; the painter exclusively of landscape is nothing but a bore.

I don't belong to any school. I work in my corner. I admire Degas.

Of course one should not drink much, but often.

Marriage is a dinner that begins with dessert.

A professional model is like a stuffed owl. These girls are alive.

The wise woman patterns her life on the theory and practice of modern banking. She never gives her love, but only lends it on the best security and at the highest rate of interest.

Novelty is seldom the essential... make a subject better from its intrinsic nature.

It is easy to finish things. Nothing is simpler. Never does one lie so cleverly as then.

I had placed my stick on the table, as I do every evening. It had been specially made to suit my height, to enable me to walk without too much difficulty. As I was standing up, a customer called to me: 'Monsieur, don't forget your pencil.' It was very unkind, but most funny.

I can paint until I'm forty. After that I intend to dry up.

I have always been a pencil.

I do not know if you bridle your pen, but when my pencil moves, it is necesary to let it go, or - crash!... nothing more.

Jealousy will drive you mad.

I am certainly not regenerating French art, but am struggling hard to accomplish something on an unlucky piece of paper which has done me no harm at all, and on which, believe me, I am doing nothing that is good... I hope things will improve eventually; as it is, I am pretty wretched.

[People] want me to finish things. But I see them in such a way and paint them accordingly. ... Nothing is simpler than to complete pictures in a superficial sense. Never does one lie so cleverly as then.

Love is a disease which fills you with a desire to be desired.... - Comte de Toulouse

Bonnat tells me, 'Your painting isn't bad, it is chic, but even so it isn't bad, but your drawing is absolutely atrocious.' So I must gather my courage and start once again.

Monet's work would have been even greater if he had not abandoned figure-painting.

When a figure painter executes a landscape he treats it as if it were a face; Degas' landscapes are unparalleled because they are visionary landscapes.