Leonora Carrington
I didn't have time to be anybody's muse; I was too busy rebelling against my parents and learning to be an artist.Collection: Learning
I am as mysterious to myself as I am mysterious to others.
I suppose what I believe in is peaceful anarchy.
Sentimentality is a form of fatigue.
You don't decide to paint. It's like getting hungry and going to the kitchen to eat. It's a need, not a choice.
One is born, one lives, one dies. What death is, I don't know.
What would anyone want to write about me for? I'm just an old lady.
I never thought of myself as a Surrealist. I didn't think of myself as anything. I try not to. We all have these egos.
Everyone's had an interesting life. Unless they're interested in business or something.
I have always thought - and a lot of people won't agree with this - that we're incredibly driven by fear, basically. Aren't we? It's awful to be frightened. I think it's a very strong, very powerful thing, fear.
In the political confusion and the torrid heat, I convinced myself that Madrid was the world's stomach and that I had been chosen for the task of restoring this digestive organ to health.
I hated being in a convent. It's another form of power. Manipulation. Because who can say - one God for the whole universe? I think there must be millions of gods! And they're not all of them very nice.
I do miss England. Well, I miss the idea of England, I think. But I haven't been back for years. I probably just miss the past.
I've always had access to other worlds. We all do because we dream.Collection: Dream
There are things that are not sayable. That’s why we have art.Collection: Art
Art is a magic which makes the hours melt away and even days dissolve into secondsCollection: Art
People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats.Collection: Cat
We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.Collection: Moving
Painting is my vehicle of transit. I don't always know where I am going or what it means.Collection: Mean
I didn't have time to be anyone's muse... I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist.Collection: Artist
You may not believe in magic but something very strange is happening at this very moment. Your head has dissolved into thin air and I can see the rhododendrons through your stomach. It's not that you are dead or anything dramatic like that, it is simply that you are fading away and I can't even remember your name.Collection: Believe
I warn you, I refuse to be an object.Collection: Refuse
The task of the right eye is to peer into the telescope, while the left eye peers into the microscope.Collection: Eye
I often feel I am being burned at the stake just because I have always refused to give up that wonderful strange power I have inside me that becomes manifested when I am in harmonious communication with some other inspired being.Collection: Giving Up
[At age 92:] There are places I'd like to return to. But not as I was then but as I am now. 'Cause I'm trying to understand. And I've understood nothing.Collection: Understanding
One has to be careful what one takes when one goes away forever.Collection: Forever
Reason must know the heart's reasons and every other reasonCollection: Heart
I never eat meat as I think it is wrong to deprive animals of their life when they are so difficult to chew anyway.Collection: Animal
Military people never seem to apologize for killing each other yet novelists feel ashamed for writing some nice inert paper book that is not certain to be read by anybody.Collection: Military
Wouldn't it be wonderful if I won a helicopter in a crossword puzzle competition? There is not much hope though I am afraid, as they never give such practical prizes.Collection: Giving
Thousands of people know my flannel knickers, and though I know this may seem flirtatious, it is not. I am a saint.Collection: People