Van Gogh on lack of sales

From a letter dated October 24, 1888:

“I realize, to the point of being morally crushed and physically drained by it, that taking it all in all, I have absolutely no other means of ever recovering what we have spent.

“I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell.

“The day will come, however, when people will see they are worth more than the price of the paint and my living expenses, very meager on the whole, which we put into them.

“As far as money or finances are concerned, what I want and what I am interested in is to have no debts in the first place.

“But, my dear brother, my debt is so great that by the time I have paid it off, which I’, still sure I’ll succeed in doing, the strain of producing pictures will have taken my whole life, and it will seem to me that I haven’t lived."
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