Where Cezanne captured and intensified shards of the eternal (every pear far more sharply defined than it could be in life), Monet portrayed the changeability and flux of every moment. 'The Water Lilies' give you a jittery, amorphous sense of a world seen at the speed of light.
When you're on top and you lead the parade, everyone's there throwing lilies and lilac water on your head. But when those parades have gone by and there's a storm in your heart, there are very few people that are going to sit there and listen to you bemoan life.
I have to accept my role. I will never kill myself like Vincent Van Gogh. Nor will I paint beautiful water lilies like Monet. I can't do that. I'm in the idiot role of being a kiddie book person.
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
The Bible tells us that God will meet all our needs. He feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass with the splendor of lilies. How much more, then, will He care for us, who are made in His image? Our only concern is to obey the heavenly Father and leave the consequences to Him.
When a baby comes you can smell two things: the smell of flesh, which smells like chicken soup, and the smell of lilies, the flower of another garden, the spiritual garden.
I love Monet: his 'Water Lilies' would look great on my wall. But would I prefer to see money helping kids get better from cancer rather than spending it on a work of art for my own personal indulgence? Yes, I probably would.