Marc Chagall Quotes

The sun has only ever shone for me in France. I have got used to beating the streets of Paris, happy beyond words dreaming of a life 125 years long - with the Louvre radiant in the distance. Having...

Marc Chagall

Letter to Sergei K. Markovsky, 1915 - The Russian Years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali.

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In response I am sending you some pictures which I painted in Paris out of homesickness for Russia. They are not very typical of me; I have selected the most modest ones for the Russian exhibition.

Marc Chagall

Letter to Mstislav V. Dobushinsky, A. N. Benois, 1912. Quoted in ‘arc Chagall - The Russian Years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali.

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No academy could have given me all I discovered by getting my teeth into the exhibitions, the shop windows, and the museums of Paris. Beginning with the market – where, for lack of money, I bought...

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall - the Russian Years 1906 – 1922

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If Russian painters were condemned to become the pupils of the West they were, I think, rather unfaithful ones by their very nature. The best Russian realist conflicts with the realism of Courbet....

Marc Chagall

My Life - 1922. Quoted in Letters of the Great Artists – from Blake to Pollock -translation Daphne Woodward.

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Only the great distance that separates Paris from my native town prevented me from going back.. ..It was the Louvre that put end to all these hesitations. When I walked around the circular Veronese...

Marc Chagall

On his arrival in Paris in 1910 - My Life - 1922. Quoted in Letters of the Great Artists – from Blake to Pollock -translation Daphne Woodward.

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I am working in Paris. I cannot for a single day get the thought out of my head that there probably exists something essential, some immutable reality, and now that I have lost everything else (thank...

Marc Chagall

Letter to A. N. Benois, 1911. Quoted in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922.

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I lived here in America during the inhuman war in which humanity deserted itself. I have seen the rhythm of life. I have seen America fighting with Allies. The wealth that she has distributed to...

Marc Chagall

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In recent years I have felt unhappy that I couldn't be with you, my friends. My enemy forced me to take the road of exile. On that tragic road, I lost my wife, the companion of my life, the woman who...

Marc Chagall

To the Paris Artists - Letter published in a Paris weekly.

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The Jews will always be grateful to it. What other great country has saved a million and a half Jews from Hitler's hands, and shared its last piece of bread? What country abolished antisemitism? What...

Marc Chagall

Speaking of Russia - Speech - 1944

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Meanwhile, the enemy jokes, saying that we are a "stupid nation." He thought that when he started slaughtering the Jews, we would all in our grief suddenly raise the greatest prophetic scream, and...

Marc Chagall

Speech - 1944

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