Catholics From France

"I had the company of monsieur Gibert. Such people see clearly, but they have the teacher's eye. As the train was taking us past Alexis' place a staggering subject for a picture came into view towards the east: St-Victoire [later Cezanne made series of paintings of Mont St. Victoire and the crags above Beaurecueil]. I said, 'What a splendid subject'; he replied, 'The lines are too symmetrical'. Referring to 'L'Assommoir' [a novel of Emile Zola ] about which, incidentally, he was the first person to speak to me, he said some very sound things, and praised it, but always from the point of view of technique."

"But there are motifs that would need three or four months' work, which could be done, as the vegetation doesn't change here. There are the olive trees and the pines that always keep their leaves. The sun is so fierce that objects seem to be silhouetted, not only in black or white, but in blue, red, brown, violet. I may be wrong, but this seems to be the very opposite of 'modeling'. How happy the gentle landscapists of Auvers would be here, and that [con, or 'bastard'?] Guillemet."

"If I dared, I should say that your [ Camille Pissarro ] letter is imprinted with sadness. The picture business isn't going well; I fear that your morale may be colored a little grey, but I'm sure that it's only a passing phase.. .I imagine that you would be delighted with the country where I am now.. ..in , by the sea. I haven't been in Aix for a month. I've started two little motifs of the sea, for Monsieur [Victor] Chocquet [one of them became his later painting 'The Sea at ', who had talked to me about it. It's like a playing card. Red roofs against the blue sea. If the weather turns favorable perhaps I'll be able to finish them off."

"Listen, monsieur Vollard, I worked a lot out of doors at . Except for that there was no other event of importance in my life during the years 1870-71. I divided my time between the field and the studio... Zola closed his letter by urging me to come back to Paris too [in 1872 Cézanne went back to Paris].. ..but all the same, something told me to go back to Paris. It was too long since I had seen the Louvre. But understand, Monsieur Vollard, I was working at that time on a landscape which was not going well. So I stayed at Aix a little while longer to study on my canvas."

"At Aix () I am not free; whenever I want to return to Paris, I always have to put up a fight, and, although your (his father) opposition may not be absolute, I am always deeply affected by the resistance that I encounter from you. I sincerely want my liberty unfettered.. ..it would give me great pleasure to work in the Midi, some aspects of which offer many resources to the painter; there I would be able to attack some of the problems that I wish to solve."

"He (the painter Manet) hits of the tone.. ..but his work lacks unity and temperament too. (ca. 1863)"

"Don't you think your Corot [to Guilemet the painter] is a little short on temperament? I'm painting a portrait of Vallabreque; the highlight on the nose is pure vermilion [remark of Cezanne ca. 1860]"

"If you eat caviar every day it's difficult to return to sausages."

"There was a debate about Wenger on Sky and how crazy is that? People are actually getting interviewed saying he shouldn't be doing this. What that man's done for English football is amazing and will be remembered in 25, 50, 100 years' time. Will those on telly yesterday be remembered for what they've achieved? None whatsoever."

"I think the job he has done at Arsenal makes him without question their most successful manager, even above people like [Herbert] Chapman."

"When I think of Arsène Wenger, I think of Warren Buffett. Wenger runs his football club like he is going to own the club for 100 years."

"Arsène Wenger is the best manager Arsenal have ever had, and one of the top three or four in top-flight British football history (along with Shankly, Clough and Ferguson)."

"I rate Wenger – he's a very polite, well-mannered man, not forceful, though but sometimes you have to be a bit of a ruthless bastard."

"Arsène's shadow has cast a gloom all the way up Seven Sisters Road [which leads to Tottenham] for quite a while now. I and the vast majority of Arsenal fans have an enormous amount of faith in Wenger."

"I think he is one of these people who is a voyeur. He likes to watch other people. There are some guys who, when they are at home, they have a big telescope to see what happens in other families. He speaks and speaks and speaks about Chelsea."

"Arsène made Arsenal what they are today, and the fans understand it perfectly. If he was to leave tomorrow, he would do it with his head up, not by the back door."

"Arsène has undoubtedly been one of the biggest influences on the modern-day Premiership. His 10 years at Arsenal have flown by, and there haven't been too many bad times. It was an absolute pleasure to play under him and I'm sure the players who are currently in the squad would agree."

"Over the years we enjoyed some fantastic battles and you could say we had survived together and respected each other's efforts to play good football. I always enjoy watching Arsène's sides - Arsenal play the right way. Playing against them always presented special challenges that I burned many hours over the years thinking about. He has always been a conscientious member of our trade who makes it his business to help other managers. Perhaps the biggest compliment I could give Arsène is that I could never be anything other than competitive with my rival for 17 years."

"We need a player who will be a fox in the box and on the pitch. We need a player like Owen is for Liverpool."

"For managers such big scores don’t have any meaning, whether you win 5-0 or you lose 5-0. You’re elated (with such a victory) but ‘footballistically’ it does not show the real difference between teams."

"They [Chelsea] are a financially doped club. They have enhancement of performances through financial resources which are unlimited. It puts pressure on the market that is not very healthy. They can go to Steven Gerrard or Rio Ferdinand and say ‘how much do you earn? We’ll give you twice as much’. I don’t know if there is anything we can do to stop it."

"If happiness is liking the life one lives, I can say I have been happy, and still am."

"You forget what you wrote last September, October, November. You have a little bit of Alzheimer's."

"I feel Bolton played a cup game today, they were one week late."

"I liked the pitch, I liked the referee, I did not like Paul Scholes' tackles."

"You ask 100 people, 99 will say it's very bad and the 100th will be Mark Hughes."

"The penalty decision was Old Traffordish."

"The speed at which we moved the ball in small spaces and our quality was superb. We played the ball through needles and it was very difficult for Aston Villa."

"It's like a child who is used to having ice cream whenever he wants. When it doesn't come when he asks he tends to get confused and nervous."

"We've been remarkably consistent, haven't lost a game and we have played stylish football. We have entertained people who just love football."

"I was surprised by the resources they find. They are amazing. It doesn't get any worse than losing a Champions League game the way we did, but I felt the way they responded was absolutely magnificent."

"We wanted tonight to be a shift of power, and to take the trophy back to Highbury."

"I want to go to the end of my job here. I built this team, I want to deliver with this team and I feel if I left I would have in some way betrayed my own beliefs. It is as simple as that. It was nothing to do with what Real Madrid has done. It was about Arsenal. I have a project here that I started three or four years ago and I want to reach the end of it. I could not leave this team at this stage of their development."

"Politically, I am for efficiency. Economically first. Until the 1980s the world was divided into two, people were either communist or capitalist. The communist model does not work economically, we all realised that, but the capitalist model in the modern world also looks to be unsustainable. You cannot ignore individual interests, but I believe the world evolves slowly. The last 30 years have brought a minimum amount of money for everybody in the west, the next step, politically, would be a maximum amount of money earned by everybody."

"My job is to give people who work hard all week something to enjoy on Saturdays and Wednesdays."

"When you are a player, you think, 'Me! Me! Me!' When you are a manager, you think 'You! You! You!'"

"Of the nine red cards this season we probably deserved half of them."

"Fair play is an English word. It is not a French word, and it has been copied all over the world. Unfortunately, it does not function any more here."

"When I first came to Arsenal, I realised the back four were all university graduates in the art of defending. As for Tony Adams, I consider him to be a doctor of defence. He is simply outstanding."

"In England, football is important for everybody."

"Going back in time, looking back is just as scary. […] there’s not as much to come as what has already been lived… The only way to fight time is to not look back too much. If you do, it can make you feel anxious and guilty."

"In my job, you expect to suffer. That's why when I go to hell one day, it will be less painful for me than you, because I'm used to suffering."

"What is unbelievable is that I am in a position where people reproach me for making a profit. The people who lose money – nobody says a word. Reproach the people who lose money. I do business by managing in a safe way in a healthy way and on top of that you reproach me for making money. It looks like we are in a business where the quality is to lose money."

"If I go into a season and I say, ‘For fuck’s sake, if we don’t win anything, they will all leave,’ I have already lost. The problem of the media is always to imagine the worst. The problem of the manager is always to imagine the best."

"Gérard [Houllier's] thoughts on the matter echo mine. He thinks that what the national coaches are doing is like taking the car from his garage without even asking permission. They will then use the car for ten days and abandon it in a field without any petrol left in the tank. We then have to recover it, but it is broken down. Then a month later they will come to take your car again, and for good measure you're expected to be nice about it."

"If I give you a good wine, you will see how it tastes and after you ask where it comes from."

"When you're dealing with someone who only has a pair of underpants on, if you take his underpants off, he has nothing left - he's naked. You're better off trying to find him a pair of trousers to complement him rather than change him."

"The background looks like a lot of red cards."

"We do not buy superstars. We make them."

"I am still hopeful we can go through the season unbeaten - a frightening thought."