Maira Kalman Quotes

What protects you in this world from sadness and from the loss of an ability to do something? ... Work and love.

A visit to a museum is a search for beauty, truth, and meaning in our lives. Go to museums as often as you can.

Wonderful things happen when your brain is empty.

Flowers lead to books, which lead to thinking and not thinking and then more flowers and music, music. Then many more flowers and many more books.

I tell you these stories because these things happen to everyone. It's not about being starched or polished or cute or polite. It's about having ears that stick out, about breaking yet another glass. It's about seeing something for the first time and making a million mistakes and not ever getting completely discouraged.

Everyone I know is looking for solace, hope and a tasty snack.

My dream is to walk around the world. A smallish backpack, all essentials neatly in place. A camera. A notebook. A traveling paint set. A hat. Good shoes. A nice pleated (green?) skirt for the occasional seaside hotel afternoon dance.

Go out and walk. That is the glory of life.

Every Monday morning is new hope.

In any work you do, you can be profound one minute, and then you be superficial the next, and you can be smart and insightful and then insipid. There can be room for all that.

You'd have to be completely crazy not to be influenced by and take from other artists. It's completely impossible not to.

Washing dishes is the anecdote to confusion. I know that for a fact.

The tears are invisible. I'm in a complete state of panic before I begin something because I'm sure that it's going to be a complete disaster. I'm going to do a worse job than anybody could ever imagine anybody doing on the planet earth.

I have many questions, but no patience to think them through.

We could speak about the meaning of life vis-a-vis non-consequential/deontological theories, apodictic transformation schemata, the incoherence of exemplification, metaphysical realism, Cartesian interactive dualism, revised non reductive dualism, postmodernist grammatology and dicey dichotomies. But we would still be left with Nietzsche's preposterous mustache which instills great anguish and skepticism in the brain, which leads (as it did in his case) to utter madness. I suggest we go to Paris instead.

The book. Calming object. Held in the hand.

The most inspiring objects are books. I have about 5,000 volumes in my home library. It's an unending source of visuals and ideas.

My short attention span has allowed me a life of diversity in work and place.

if something does go wrong, here is my advice... KEEP CALM and CARRY ON.

Soon enough it will be me struggling (valiantly?) to walk - lugging my stuff around. How are we all so brave as to take step after step? Day after day? How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip and yet do trip, and then get up and say O.K. Why do I feel so sorry for everyone and so proud?

I like the brooding man - a brooding man with a sense of humor.

On my desk, I always have a lemon or a lime drying. I love the fragrance. Also, a Staedtler eraser, a brush for the eraser and a pencil sharpener.

I still do have the little lunch bag that my mother made out of a towel and embroidered with my name on it for when I went to kindergarten.

My workspace is defined by books, ephemera, quiet and light. I don't have a computer, telephone or a fax machine there.

I said, 'Well, how much space do I have?' And they said, 'Well, you know, it's the Internet.'