# Quote — Paul Gauguin, The Writings Of A Savage

> I am a great artist and I know it. It's because of what I am that I have endured so much suffering, so as to pursue my vocation, otherwise I would consider myself a rogue — which is what many people think I am, for that matter. Oh well, what difference does it make. What upsets me the most is not so much the poverty as the things that perpetually get in the way of my art, which I cannot carry out the way I feel and which I would carry out if it weren't for the poverty that is like a straitjacket. You tell me I am wrong to stay away from the artist[ic] center. No, I am right; I've known for a long time what I am doing and why I am doing it. My artistic center is in my brain and nowhere else, and I am strong because I am never thrown off-course by other people and because I do what is in me.

- Author: [Paul Gauguin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-gauguin.md)
- Book: [The Writings Of A Savage](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-gauguin/the-writings-of-a-savage.md)
- Page: 53
- Original (fr): Je suis un grand artiste et je le sais. C'est parce que je le suis que j'ai tellement enduré de souffrances. Pour poursuivre ma voie, sinon je me considérerai comme un brigand. Ce que je suis du reste pour beaucoup de personnes. Enfin, qu'importe! Ce qui me chagrine le plus c'est moins la misère que les empêchements perpétuels à mon art que je ne puis faire comme je le sens et comme je pourais le faire sans la misère qui me lie les bras. Tu me dis que j'ai tort de rester éloigné du centre artistique. Non, j'ai raison, je sais depuis longtemps ce que je fais et pourquoi je le fais. Mon centre artistique est dans mon cerveau et pas ailleurs et je suis fort parce que je ne suis jamais dérouté par les autres et je fais ce qui est en moi.
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Gauguin#The_Writings_of_a_Savage_(1996)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-gauguin/the-writings-of-a-savage/i-am-a-great

## More from this book

> At the age of ten, twenty, a hundred, very young, a little older, and very old, an artist is always an artist. Isn't he better at some times, some moments, than at others? Never impeccable, since he is a living, human being?

p. 219 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-gauguin/the-writings-of-a-savage/at-the-age.md)

> ..color being enigmatic in itself.. ..then to be logical we cannot use it any other way than enigmatically..

p. 145 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-gauguin/the-writings-of-a-savage/color-being-enigmatic.md)

> I do not paint by copying nature. Everything I do springs from my wild imagination.

p. 22 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-gauguin/the-writings-of-a-savage/i-do-not.md)