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When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll be the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.

When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll be the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.

Approximate author period: c. 1927 AD · modern

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Pablo Picasso
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1927 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1881 to 1973; Wikidata Q5593, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5593 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 97171; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.