Irving Stone
Do not call yourself old. A man is as old as the creative force within him.Collection: Men
To try to understand another human being, to grapple for his ultimate depths, that is the most dangerous of human endeavors.Collection: Trying
Bleed me of art, and there won't be enough liquid left in me to spit! [Michelangelo Buonorotti]Collection: Art
Man's spirit grows hungry for art in the same way his stomach growls for food.Collection: Art
He had been standing still; for an artist, one of the more painful forms of death.Collection: Artist
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.Collection: Sweet
An artist would not rise above the mediocrity if he condemns it.Collection: Artist
When I have trouble writing, I step outside my studio into the garden and pull weeds until my mind clears--I find weeding to be the best therapy there is for writer's block.Collection: Weed
We...believe that art is religious, because it is one of man's highest aspirations. There is no such thing as pagan art, only good and bad art.Collection: Religious
After all, the world is still great.Collection: World
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.Collection: Girl
I cannot draw a human figure if I don't know the order of his bones, muscles or tendons. Same is that I cannot draw a human face if I don't know what's going on his mind and heart. In order to paint life one must understand not only anatomy, but what people feel and think about the world they live in. The painter who knows his own craft and nothing else will turn out to be a very superficial artist.Collection: Heart
...that horrible moment of suspense when the artist shows one of his creations to strange eyes for the first time.Collection: Art
The one who has not seen Paris in the morning does not know how beautiful it is.Collection: Beautiful
All artists are crackpots. And it's their finest feature.Collection: Artist
Religion will never show the way.Collection: Way
Everyone has their own personality, its own character, and if he respects that, everything would finally fall over for good only.Collection: Fall
The maximum value of art is that it allows the artist to express himself.Collection: Art
...and rout the magical mystical moonlight with fierce proof of its own greater power to light, to heat, to make everything known.Collection: Light
Fortune is beastly - it is only suitable for cows and businessmen.Collection: Cows
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.Collection: Reading
I will be an artist. I am sure I will. [Vincent Van Gogh]Collection: Artist
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.'Collection: Self
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.Collection: Thinking
No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him.Collection: Strength
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.Collection: Art
Loneliness is a kind of prison. [Vincent Van Gogh]Collection: Loneliness
The real artist while he paints does not think of the sale, only of the need to make a beautiful living thing.Collection: Beautiful
Nature always resists the artist at the beginning.Collection: Artist
The brooding is better than the joy because even if the heart fills with happiness, it still mourns.Collection: Heart
Normal people do not create art.Collection: Art
The writer ... an athlete required to break the four-minute mile every morning.Collection: Morning
Someday my paintings will be hanging in the Louvre. [Vincent Van Gogh]Collection: Painting
Drawing is the poet's written line, set down to see if there be a story worth telling, a truth worth revealing.Collection: Drawing
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?Collection: Men
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.Collection: Book
You cannot be the good all the time — sometimes it is necessary to get angry. [Vincent Van Gogh]Collection: Sometimes
Misery is the only thing in the world that has no end or edge.Collection: World
I was thinking that Rembrandt would have like to paint you.Collection: Romance