Ever since I was six, I have been obsessed with drawing the shapes of things. By the time I was fifty, I had published countless drawings, but nothing I produced before the age of seventy is worthy of note. Not until I was seventy-three did I begin to understand the structure of nature as it truly is, the structure of animals, plants, trees, birds, fish and insects. Thus, by the time I am eighty, I will have made some real progress. At ninety I will have fathomed the mystery of things; at a hundred I will surely have reached a phenomenal level, and when I’m a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive. I would ask anyone living as long as I do to see if I am true to my word. Written at the age of seventy-five, by me, formerly called Gakyō Rojin, the old madman of art.
Hokusai
“Never stop learning. Never treat yourself as “you have arrived.” Never think it’s too late to learn or start anew. Every step is a beginning. Mastery is in the simplest of things.”
from https://medium.com/urban-girl-texts/hokusai-on-mastery-24dcd34b3324