Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I want to die consciously, without fear, and without anger. Three things. I see my friends dying with fear and anger and it's terrible. My grandmother kept her clothes ready for 40 years for her funeral. She lived to 103! But she kept the clothes in a cupboard. As the styles changed, she changed the clothes! I think if I start now with my funeral, it's good.
Kyo: Of course, I'll beat YOU, too! Yuki: Don't you ever get tired of saying that? Kyo: Beating you is my vocation! It's my goal in life! Yuki: It's so unfair that I keep having to take abuse just because you can't meet your goals. Kyo: THAT CONDESCENDING ATTITUDE OF YOURS REALLY PISSES ME OFF! Yuki: And that revolting thought process of yours pisses me off.
I was a guest at CalArts. John Baldessari invited me out a few times. I've been there. I've been in Pasadena, taught out at Boulder, University of Colorado. And I've taught in Europe. I've lectured and taught. I've taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nigne [sp]. I was there for a couple of weeks, I was there. I've taught all over - in Switzerland, Germany.
None the less, perhaps, the highest pleasure in art is identical with the highest pleasure inscientific theory. The emotion which accompanies the clear recognition of unity in a complex seems to be so similar in art and in science that it is difficult not to suppose that they are psychologically the same. It is, as it were, the final stage of both processes.
I remembered... It was the colour of your hair. Farewell...Erza. ~I'm Jellal Fernandez. What about you, Erza?(I'm Erza. Just Erza.) Well, that's kind of sad. Ohh!(Hey...What are you doing?!)It's such a pretty scarlet colour...I know! We'll give you the last name of Scarlet!(Erza...Scarlet) It's the colour of you hair! Nobody will ever forget that!~(Jellal...)
The principal thing is the question of how our culture views age: that old is ugly. Take a photographer like Mapplethorpe. Every single photograph of his is about classical notions of beauty, of young beautiful black men, young beautiful women, and he selects subjects who are essentially interesting and good-looking and extremely physical. I can't stand them.
When art is really great, it's really powerful, can really do something to you, make you feel more alive and make you feel more connected to something. If you don't feel like that when you do it, and you just make a movie to make money, that would be pretty boring to me. I just wouldn't do it. That would be like sitting in an office, which I don't want to do.
I have to make about a million proofs of everything. I don’t know, it’s just a repetition, like a meditation. You come back to something and then you leave it, and then you come back again and you leave it, and each time it changes. And sometimes you have to wait for new information inside yourself to be able to finish something, to find out how it should go.
A woman’s beauty is supposed to be her grand project and constant insecurity. We’re meant to shellac our lips with five different glosses, but always think we’re fat. Beauty is Zeno’s paradox. We should endlessly strive for it, but it’s not socially acceptable to admit we’re there. We can’t perceive it in ourselves. It belongs to the guy screaming 'nice tits.
There are lots of guns and action in my drawings, and part of that is just to make them more interesting. Because you can go through a whole film and it's mostly talking heads and little else until the action scenes, and they're usually violence or physical stuff. Same with baseball, or any sport. Except I find pitching and batting are visually very striking.
The life we live today - the environment in which we live - is not one of security - it's one of doubt, one of suspicion, one of absolute tension - we're not a pastoral society any more. We feel around us the pressure of man's inadequacy to control his own development. The time when the great forces of nature, the stones and the rocks, were the gods, is gone.
As an artist, i feel lucky to have been given the gift of creativity so that i may share my vision of a better world. I will never forget what it was like to be poor and that is why it is so important to me that my work be accessible to all people. For me, art can reflect the celebration of the simple and good things in life. This is the most important to me.
When you organize your work and look back at your entire production, it may feel like you're looking at a straight line, but in fact it's nothing like that. The work is very experimental and most of the time it develops like branches. I usually see a capillary, like a tree shape where there are... branches that sort of move because you're not tending to them.
Every philharmonic orchestra merely interprets the composer. My goal was to create new music by that composer. In doing so, I wanted to find the painter's creative center and become familiar with it, so that I could see through his eyes how his paintings came about and, of course, see the new picture I was painting through his eyes - before I even painted it.
I want you to make u and go halfzies on this cake. K? But. . . I want a piece too, so i guess we'll have to go thirdzies. . . Awwww, we're not going to be able to split the strawberry on top though. What should we do? Maybe I should just take it after all strawberries are my favorite. . . oh! I forgot to ask Hiku-chan, Kau-chan do you like strawberries? -Hunny
I'm only trying to present as honest a portrayal of the grimness of human ambition as I can. I'd hope it's rather uplifting, actually, since I find the sort of blind optimism and empty laughter of a great deal of "contemporary culture" to be more depressing than something that admits to a potential for disappointment and a gnawing sense of existential mockery.
I was extremely timid and to be made to feel that I was not wanted, although in a place where I had every right to be, even months afterwards caused me sometimes weeks of pain. Every time any one of these disagreeable incidents came into my mind, my heart sank, and I was anew tortured by the thought of what I had endured, almost as much as the incident itself.
I just really enjoying creating in general; I used to also write stories and play music and do different crafts, but illustration ended up being the creative outlet that I focused on for my career. I feel like illustration gives me the flexibility to tackle more abstract or loose ideas, as well as just enjoy the process of putting time into developing a skill.
Part of what I am dealing with, with this blackness, is asking the question, "Where are those black people, who are as dark as the description of a young black boy that Solomon Northup gives in 12 Years A Slave?" He describes the young black 14-year-old boy as "blacker than any crow." You have to question if he is using that metaphorically or as a descriptive?
When museums are left with so little money that their future is in the hands of private donors, then they are unable to develop their own signatures by collecting themselves. On the other hand, though, I think we should also celebrate the fact that there is a lot of art that lives outside of, or on the outskirts of, the art market - and it is doing quite well.
I don't really know what makes someone want to be a cartoonist, but part of it is trying to get in trouble. You're looking where the line is and seeing how much you can step over it, and I mean, I do that in my personal life, too. I try to anger and piss people off a little bit to try to see what I can get away with. I got in trouble with more than one cartoon.
I underwent a whole process of slowly letting go of idiosyncrasies and habits and embellishments and everything extraneous to the essentials that I'm unwilling to let go of. I never dreamed that I would be making black-and-white paintings with so little embellishment. But it's been liberating in many ways to let go of that and yet see what I did want to retain.
. . . I wrote a letter to Thomas Pynchon asking, Can I have your permission to try to make an [adaptation] of your book? And I had no idea that he would answer me, because he's pretty elusive. But he did send a letter back that said, Yes, you can do that - as long as the only instrument in the opera is a banjo. I thought, That's an interesting way of saying No.
My new work deals with emptying my body: 'Boat emptying, stream entering.' This means that you have to empty the body/boat to the point where you can really be connected with the fields of energy around you. I think that men and women in our Western culture are completely disconnected from that energy, and in my new work I want to make this connection possible.
The word 'abstract' comes from the light tower of the philosophers. One of their spotlights that they have particularly focused on 'Art'. [Abstraction was] not so much what you could paint but rather what you could not paint. You could not paint a house or a tree or a mountain. It was then that subject matter came into existence as something you ought not have.
In 1951 I took my first art course. And one day I looked over my shoulder and there was this tall gentleman standing, very well-dressed and groomed, and he asked, "What is your name? I don't know you. What is your major?" I said history. And he looked at my drawing and looked at me and said, "You don't belong over there; you belong here." He was James A. Porter.
I did make several trips to the very wonderful [Georgia] O'Keeffe museum. Besides the art (my favorite paintings are from her Pelvis series) my favorite thing about the museum is the architecture. I love how enormously tall the doors are - it is like going into a church. There is also something home-like about the layout of the museum. I wish I could live there!
Do you see that I cherish you beyond question, that you have nothing to prove to me? You are making your journey to secure yourself. I am already tethered to your side. if you can love yourself as I love you there will be no dislocation --- you will be whole. Bring yourself home to me and I will immerse you in very ounce of tenderness I possess. - Sabine Strohem
Every tree, every plant, has a spirit. People may say that the plant has no mind. I tell them that the plant is alive & conscious. A plant may not talk, but there is a spirit in it that is conscious, that sees everything, which is the soul of the plant, its essence, what makes it alive. The channels through which the water & sap move are the veins of the spirit.
Some people get medals and awards and all that, and maybe not intentionally - maybe the world is making them do it - but they sort of just follow what they were doing. Repeat or follow what they were doing all their lives, in their style of music or whatever. In my case, I always try to start from scratch. It's very nerve-wracking actually, but it's interesting.
An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great power and art in small things roughly and rudely done, than many another in a great work. A man may often draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day . . . . and it shall be fuller of art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole year's careful labor.
The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat: They took some honey, and plenty of money Wrapped up in a five-pound note. . . They dined on mince and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon.
There was no hope for any kind of big opportunity. I'm not saying it was hopeless. The big pay-off was to work as an artist and gain some shred of respect from your friends, who were also artists. But there was never any notion that you could make a living out of art. On the rare occasions you had a gallery show, and sold a little work, well, that was just gravy.
Love is a gift, a miracle, a mystery. You are led to its threshold by your affinities, by your inclinations, and by the yearnings of your heart, although its power and presentation is by grace, not by expectation, demand, or requirement. Love is the ultimate paradox, for it is the lamb that is also the lion. Love is the ultimate power, which resides in surrender.
I don't think people were put here to be happy. I think if you decide to be an artist or a writer, you automatically accept the responsibility of being alone. However, after your 50 or 60 years are up you'll be able to look back and see this output that you've done that will endure long after you're gone, and will continue to fill the minds of millions of people.
In [Ralph] Ellison's case, it's more psychological than it is phenomenal, and it's conditioned by anger, animosity, and lack of desire to engage with the black body. There was always simultaneity that had nothing to do with visuality. You can be there and not be there at the same time and be fully visible all the time. That's what really struck me about Ellison .
The internet has extended the possibility of making art to more people, and particularly of enabling it to be seen by others. I am sure the internet is having a profound impact on art, particularly those who have grown up with it, but making good art will remain as difficult (and as easy) as it ever was. Having a lasting impact may become more not less difficult.
Heidegger wrote a book called Was Ist Das Ding - What Is a Thing? which was kind of interesting and influential to me, as a matter of fact. It's a small paperback, which I read. It's about the nature of thingness; what is it? It's a very penetrating analysis of that, and I think a rather influential book. I know other artists who have read it and come up with it.
Carl Orff's Carmina Burana has the ability to take you from placidity to power in one sonic breath. It is music of dignity and strength, with primitive, energetic passages, evoking absolute beauty from the simplest of phrases. It brings up something that has everything to do with significance - squeezing joy and motif that you just can't drop - it stays with you.
Mastership hath many shifts whereby it striveth to keep itself alive in the world. And now hear a marvel: whereas thou sayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man's work, in days to come one man shall do the work of a hundred men - yea, of a thousand or more: and this is the shift of mastership that shall make many masters and many rich men.
In the range of my character at any given moment, I have acted in the only way it seemed to me I could have acted. This in no way means that I have done what was right; only what was possible for me. Sometimes I have done what I knew was wrong, and have rationalized. But rationalization is a form of desperation. It takes kindness to forgive oneself for one's life.
For me it's really important that the work here displays an aesthetic of decay along with the sunken boat with the broken ceramic pieces. They form a unity in showing the power of destruction, the beauty of destruction, whether it's from nature - because the boat has sunk - or through other forces. It's really the beauty of decay and death that holds a power here.
There are a lot of things that got me into working with photos. The main thing is that I saw both what was being said and not being said with photos in the newspapers... I found out how you can fool people with photos, really fool them... You can lie and tell the truth by putting the wrong title or wrong captions under them, and that's roughly what was being done.
When objects are presented within the context of art (and until recently objects always have been used) they are as eligible for aesthetic consideration as are any objects in the world, and an aesthetic consideration of an object existing in the realm of art means that the object's existence or functioning in an art context is irrelevant to the aesthetic judgment.
I believe in art that is connected to real human feeling, that extends itself beyond the limits of the art world to embrace all people who are striving for alternatives in an increasingly dehumanized world. I am trying to make art that relates to the deepest and most mythic concerns of human kind and I believe that, at this moment of history, feminism is humanism.
When I look at American history and I look at what history means to me, I look at it as if it were a string of stories. And if it's told well enough and in a way that's charming and warm and with wit and humor, then it takes a bit of the edge off of it. You can still tell the truth, but if you tell it very sweetly and very warmly, it makes it go down a bit easier.
The catalyst that converts any physical location - any environment if you will - into a place, is the process of experiencing deeply. A place is a piece of the whole environment that has been claimed by feelings. Viewed simply as a life-support system, the earth is an environment. Viewed as a resource that sustains our humanity, the earth is a collection of places.
So today if you see a person who looks like your teenage fantasy walking down the street, it's probably not your fantasy, but someone who had the same fantasy as you and decided instead of getting it or being it, to look like it, and so he went to the store and bought the look that you both like. So forget it. Just think about all the James Deans and what it means.
Dancing and music get into our bodies and it gets into our minds and it gets into our souls and we can be connected to something else. Music connects us all to each other, and I think that's just magical and beautiful, and I need that in my life. Heartbreak is the pain of separation. To me, the cure that music offers and that dancing offers is complete integration.
You begin by engaging the left hemisphere of the brain with the overall shape, the basic structure of the painting, and then eventually you engage with the colour, with the mood of the painting and then you are entering the activities of the right hemisphere - and it is in the right hemisphere that ideas of space are born, the realization that you are seeing space.