Hokusai Quotes

I have drawn things since I was 6. All that I made before the age of 65 is not worth counting. At 73 I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At 90 I will enter into the secret of things. At 110, everything - every dot, every dash - will live. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age, I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.'

If heaven gives me ten more years, or an extension of even five years, I shall surely become a true artist.

What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. - Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother

If only Heaven will give me just another ten years... Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter.

Since the age of six, I have had a passion for drawing things. Now that I am 75 years, I have finally learned something of the true quality of birds, animals, insects, fishes, and of the vital nature of grasses and trees. By the time I am 89, I shall have made more progress. By the time I am 90, I shall understand the deeper meaning of things. When I am 100, I shall be truly marvelous; and at 110 each dot and each line will possess a life of its own.

At seventy-three I learned a little about the real structure of animals, plants, birds, fishes and insects. Consequently when I am eighty I'll have made more progress. At ninety I'll have penetrated the mystery of things. At a hundred I shall have reached something marvellous, but when I am a hundred and ten everything I do, the smallest dot, will be alive.

Since the age of six I have had the habit of sketching forms of objects. Although from about fifty I have often published my pictorial works, before the seventieth year none is worthy.

If I could only have one more day, I could do a great painting.