Quotes from Winslow Homer

I do not care to put out any ideas for pictures. They are too valuable and can be appropriated by any art student, defrauding me out of a possible picture.

Never put more than two waves in a picture; it's fussy.

When you paint, try to put down exactly what you see. Whatever else you have to offer will come out anyway.

The Sun will not rise or set without my notice and thanks.

What's the use? The people are too stupid. They do not understand.

Look at nature, work independently, and solve your own problems.

If a man wants to be an artist, he should never look at pictures.

I don't want a lot of people nosing round my studio and bothering me. I don't want to see them at all. Let the dealers have all that bother.

This making studies and then taking them home to use them is only half right. You get composition, but you lose freshness; you miss the subtle and, to the artist, the finer characteristics of the scene itself.

I thought for a change I would give up drinking, and it was a great mistake, and, although I reduced the size of my nose and improved my beauty, my stomach suffered.

You will see, in the future I will live by my watercolors.