Gertrude Stein on Picasso

     The painter does not conceive himself as existing in himself, he conceives himself as a reflection of the objects he has put into his pictures and he lives in the reflections of his pictures, a writer, a serious writer, conceives himself as existing by and in himself, he does not live in the reflection of his books, to write he must first of all exist in himself, but for a painter to be able to paint, the painting must first of all be done; therefor the egotism of a painter is not at all the egotism of a writer, and this is why Picasso who was a man who only expressed himself in painting had only writers as friends.