“Am I not,
Myself, only half a figure of a sort,
A figure half seen, or seen for a moment, a man
Of the mind, an apparition appareled in
Apparels of such lightest look that a turn
Of my shoulders and quickly, too quickly, I am gone?”

“Often I think of that excellent painter Monticelli,... when I come back myself from the mental labor of balancing the six essential colors.... sheer work and calculation, with one's mind utterly on the stretch, like an actor on the stage in a difficult part, with a hundred things at once to think of in a single half-hour.
Don't think that I would artificially keep up a feverish condition, but do understand that I am in the midst of a complicated calculation which results in quick succession in canvases quickly executed, but calculated long beforehand. So now, when anyone says that such and such is done too quickly, you can reply that they have looked at it too quickly.”

“I’m supposed to figure out if the glass is half full or half empty,” I told her.

Without a moment’s hesitation, in a split second, my grandmother shrugged and said: “It depends on if you’re drinking or pouring.”

“I am going to do some drawings or paintings…in the mirror of my wardrobe.. with myself as a figure doing something.”

“I am not menopausal. I just wanted half an hour alone. Is that too much to ask? A crappy half hour!”

“I am the angel of reality,
Seen for a moment standing in the door.”

“I am no prophet — and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.”

“And so I am an American and I have lived half my life in Paris, not the half that made me but the half in which I made what I made.”

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope… I have loved none but you.”

“I feel half faded away like some figure in the background of an old picture.”