Irving Stone Quotes - Page 3

An artist would not rise above the mediocrity if he condemns it.

From the biography of Freud, by Irving Stone, said by Freud's fiance after he teased her for being sweet, "Beware of truly sweet people. They have will of iron.

The paintings that laughed at him merrily from the walls were like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed of. Gone were the flat, thin surfaces. Gone was the sentimental sobriety. Gone was the brown gravy in which Europe had been bathing its pictures for centuries. Here were pictures riotously mad with the sun. With light and air and throbbing vivacity. Paintings of ballet girls backstage, done in primitive reds, greens, and blues thrown next to each other irreverantly. He looked at the signature. Degas.

All artists are crackpots. And it's their finest feature.

Reading is a stouthearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-to-it-ness.

Religion will never show the way.

The maximum value of art is that it allows the artist to express himself.

Fortune is beastly - it is only suitable for cows and businessmen.

...and rout the magical mystical moonlight with fierce proof of its own greater power to light, to heat, to make everything known.

Everyone has their own personality, its own character, and if he respects that, everything would finally fall over for good only.

Sometimes men are generous and forgiving, sometimes angry and blind.

How can a young person learn whether he chose the correct way? He thinks he has a special idea, and then he discovers that he is completely inappropriate for it.

Art's a staple. Like bread or wine or a warm coat in winter. Those who think it is a luxury have only a fragment of a mind. Man's spirit grows hungry for art in the same way his stomach growls for food.

Someday my paintings will be hanging in the Louvre. [Vincent Van Gogh]

Nature always resists the artist at the beginning.

... a canvas that I have covered is worth more than a blank canvas. My pretensions go no further; that is my right to paint, my reason for painting.

I will be an artist. I am sure I will. [Vincent Van Gogh]

Reading has always been the largest and most irreplaceable pleasure for Vincent; reading about other people's successes and failures, joys and sufferings seemed to bury his own failures.

No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him.

He made his colours, built his stretchers, plastered his canvas, painted his pictures, carpentered his frames, and painted them. 'Too bad I can't buy my own pictures,' he murmured aloud. 'Then I'd be completely self-sufficient.'

Loneliness is a kind of prison. [Vincent Van Gogh]

The writer ... an athlete required to break the four-minute mile every morning.

I knew that I had to find out more about van Gogh. Even though I was far too young, and felt I did not have sufficient technique to write a book about Vincent van Gogh, I knew I had to try. If I didn't I would never write anything else.

You cannot be the good all the time — sometimes it is necessary to get angry. [Vincent Van Gogh]

Listen, my friend, all forms that exist in God's universe can be found in the human figure. A man's body and face can tell everything he represents. So how could I ever exhaust my interest in it?