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Quotes by Artist

"I think in the corridors of power these dangerous kinds of orders are issued in a much more vague way, passed down two or three levels of command before they're given to the assassin."

"Today we are searching for things in nature that are hidden behind the veil of appearance... We look for and paint this inner, spiritual side of nature."

"Don't bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid."

"I felt very strongly the whole social impact of that depression, you know, and I felt very strongly about the efforts that this Resettlement Administration was trying to accomplish; resettling people, helping them, and so on."

"When a man returned from the field and we'd look at the work, we'd criticize each other very genuinely and never offensively. And we would avoid all tricks, angle shots were just horrible to us."

"And for every project, because it takes years, you can see the early drawings and collages as just a simple, vague idea, and through the years and through the negotiations of getting the permit, you see that every detail is now clarified."

"From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born."

"The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn't have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression, you know. I couldn't get as far as Hoboken at that time."

"If I hadn't started painting, I would have raised chickens."

"Any ground subtracts its own hue from the colors which it carries and therefore influences."

"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing."

"You can not do what you want to do unless you know the correct technique. The only other way you can learn how to do it is by doing it yourself, which would take twice as long than if you went to school."

"It is not only one person's work, it's really a partnership and collaboration during all these years."

"It was always my intention that The Frieze should be housed in a room which would provide a suitable architectural frame for it."

"Now, to describe the process of the Wrapped Reichstag, which went from 1971 to '95, there is an entire book about that, because each one of our projects has its own book. The book is not an art book, meaning it's not written by an art historian."

"It's a little bit like my inability to read a guide book before I go anywhere. I can read it after I've been there and by the same logic I refuse to accept any technical stunts from anybody. I refused to learn more than I knew and I confess I missed a great deal."

"Oh, yes. I knew I was weird by the time I was four. I knew I wasn't like other boys. I knew I was more fearful. I didn't like the rough and tumble most boys were into. I knew I was a sissy."

"There have been many different artists that have been inspirational. I suppose the question is directed to what was the reason why I went into fantasy illustration."

"I will make up for it now, I have not a moment to lose."

"Right at the beginning, I didn't know if Miffy was a boy or girl."

"Very quickly a painting is turned into a facsimile of itself when one becomes so familiar with with it that one recognizes it without looking at it."

"I feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography."

"But the moment you use an ordinary camera, you are not seeing the picture, remember, meaning, you had to remember what you've taken. Now you could see it of course, with a digital thing, but remember in 1982 you couldn't."

"Between my head and my hand, there is always the face of death."

"And I think a painting has such a limited life anyway."

"I confess that Roy was a little bit dictatorial in his editing and he ruined quite a number of my pictures, which he stopped doing later. He used to punch a hole through a negative. Some of them were incredibly valuable. He didn't understand at the time."

"Talent does whatever it wants to do. Genius does only what it can."

"The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents."
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