How To Paint Quotes & Sayings

When I was four or five years old, my grandfather showed me how to build things, paint, saw. Through years of fixing bikes, repairing lawn mowers, I learned how things work. — Tony Fadell

How memories lie to us. How time coats the ordinary with gold. How it breaks the heart to go back and attempt to re-live them. How crushed we are when we discover that the gold was merely gold-plating thinly coated over lead, chalk and peeling paint. — Henry Rollins

I can't understand how anyone is able to paint without optimism. — Hans Hofmann

Will paint in pleasing colors." "How do you know which colors to use?" I asked. "There are instructions for each item on your workstation. — David Baldacci

What is a portrait good for, unless it shows just how the subject was seen by the painter? In the old days before photography came in a sitter had a perfect right to say to the artist: "Paint me just as I am." Now if he wishes absolute fidelity he can go to the photographer and get it. — Aubrey Beardsley

How to paint the landscape: First you make your bow to the landscape. Then you wait, and if the landscape bows to you, then, and only then, can you paint the landscape. — John Marin

How do you see this tree? Is it green?
... Don't be afraid to paint it as green as possible. — Paul Gauguin

And how to paint your lovely hands, fluttering over the silks like two dark birds? — Elizabeth Borton De Trevino

I walked back to the window to look down at the people who shared this city with me. The people who made every day a series of mediocrities.

The unreformed murderers masquerading as businessmen in borrowed suits and debt-laden cars. The voluptuous bimbos floating around in an inexplicable mix of vacuity and despair.

The crumbling face of my building looked pretty enough from across the street, but from here I could see how worn it was. I peeled off a satisfying chunk of paint, cement and matter. And I let it fall to the street below. — Nasri Atallah

The more you travel, the better you get at it. It sounds silly, but with experience you learn how to pack the right way. I remember one of my first trips abroad, travelling around Europe by rail, fresh out of high school. I brought all these books with me and a paint set. I really had too much stuff, so I've learnt to be more economical. — Roman Coppola

With so much reading ahead of you, the temptation might be to speed up. But in fact it's essential to slow down and read every word. Because one important thing that can be learned by reading slowly is the seemingly obvious but oddly underappreciated fact that language is the medium we use in much the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint. I realize it may seem obvious, but it's surprising how easily we lose sight of the fact that words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted. — Francine Prose

Instead of art I have taught philosophy. Though technique for me is a big word, I never have taught how to paint. All my doing was to make people to see. — Josef Albers

People don't care how you feel. You need to paint pictures, you need to tell stories. That's what people want. They want to be entertained. Then all of the other stuff kind of filters across as part of the whole thing. — Glenn Frey

The overwhelming consensus is that the traditions contained within the epistle can confidently be traced to James the Just. That would make James's epistle arguably one of the most important books in the New Testament. Because one sure way of uncovering what Jesus may have believed is to determine what his brother James believed. The first thing to note about James's epistle is its passionate concern with the plight of the poor. This, in itself, is not surprising. The traditions all paint James as the champion of the destitute and dispossessed; it is how he earned his nickname, "the Just." The Jerusalem assembly was founded by James upon the principle of service to the poor. There is even evidence to suggest that the first followers of Jesus who gathered under James's leadership referred to themselves collectively as "the poor. — Reza Aslan

The first time you view a house, you see how pretty the paint is and buy it. The second time you look to see if the basement has termites. It's the same with men. — Claudia Carroll

Hey," Natalie said. "You're here early."
"It's almost seven. Why are you covered in chocolate? Your clothes and your ... your face. Both your faces."
Luke looked at Natalie, really looked at her. Yep, she was smeared with chocolate like it was camo paint, transferred from his mouth to hers and back again too many times to count.
"We were ... " Natalie began. "We were just
"
"Sampling," Luke cut in. If Natalie had wanted Ivy to know, she would've come straight out with it.
Ivy crossed her arms. "Sampling?"
"Yeah, I'm interested in her ... product. So she let me, uh, try some." Wow, he couldn't have sounded kinkier if he'd tried.
"But it's all over the floor on that side of the lab. Like, all over the place. It's even on the wall. How did it get on the ceiling? You must be one sloppy eater. — Ophelia London

In teaching color, you teach people how to look something and see the tone in it and break it down to be able to paint it and reproduce that color. But then, I'm psychedelic, so I look at color differently. I like colors that are in contrast with one another, so that they flicker back and forth. — John Van Hamersveld

On a piece of prose, you have to work at least six hours a day. I don't know how you can do that and teach and raise a kid and paint the house. — Mary Karr

Then maybe you'll help me convince Mr. MacGregor that I should paint his house."
"Just watch how you have to twist his arm," Serena said dryly. — Nora Roberts

Can we really put Ben (hereby representing all men) on such a pedestal? Having tamed those beasts set aside for him, is it not like Ben to seek out that which has historically (regardless of how brief a history) been set aside for women? Woolf criticizes the masculine in her work with the repetition of the phrases uttered by that inconsiderate individual who makes the claim that women cannot paint or write. Is Ben not committing the same crime as that unfortunate character?
In stating "[b]etter like this, bitch," Ben employs a word that I would consider to be demasculinizing, rather than feminine. In using the word bitch, he seizes this scholarly investigation and, if you will, pisses on it, claiming it as his own. His statement is an outright challenge. This is a book I stole from women, and I urinated on it. You'd better appreciate my conquest or I will also urinate on you. — Caris O'Malley

I'll get an inspiration and start painting; then I'll forget everything, everything except how things used to be and how to paint it so people will know how we used to live. — Grandma Moses

Pablo Picasso would paint a painting and hang it on the wall, and you would go and see the painting exactly how he wanted it to be made. But if you have an idea for a TV show, for example, you're beholden to studios to produce it and distributors to distribute it. — Casey Neistat

You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. — Robert M. Pirsig

They say I'm insane because I need to have so much creative control. They say I'm unmanageable, but I'm not. I just know what I like. I'm obsessed with it. If you can't control it, that's like having somebody else paint your pictures. How could you do that? I never could. — Iggy Azalea

When you make music, you're forming these invisible vibrations in the air into different shapes and consistencies and speeds in order to create music, and understanding how the math of that works just gives you more colors to paint with, and allows you to get to what you want quicker. — Flea

To write well, to have style ... is to paint. The master faculty of style is therefore the visual memory. If a writer does not see what he describes-countrysides and figures, movements and gestures-how could he have a style, that is originality? — Remy De Gourmont

How are you, Rory?' [the Doctor] asked.
I [Rory] ... answered him. 'It's been odd being you.'
'Isn't it?' The Doctor's smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
'How do you cope?'
'Ah ... ' The Doctor picked away at a scrap of loose paint on the door. 'Well, I just get as close as I can to a happy ending, then I shut the door behind me and move on.'
I nodded.
We shut the door behind us and moved on. — James Goss

It is extraordinary to see how the discovery of one single free stroke of paint can fill you with such joy and amazement. — Michele Cassou

Vincent did not know how to express his feelings in words. He knew how to paint them.
However, one cannot paint the farewell. — Irving Stone

An art critic is someone who hopes to see his ideas translated to canvas without having to learn how to paint. — Robert Breault

Looking to the mountains around us, I saw that the mysterious artist who comes at night had paid us a visit. I wondered how he could paint so many different colors in one night; red, wine, yellow, and rust. — Wilson Rawls

Once a person has been poisoned by self-deception, he can't make decisions about himself as neatly as all that," Himiko said, elaborating her friend's terrific prophecy; " You won't get a divorce Bird. You'll justify yourself like crazy, and try to salvage your married life by confusing the real issues. A decision like divorce is beyond you now, Bird, the poison has gone to work. And you know how the story ends ? Not even your own wife will trust you absolutely, and one day you'll discover for yourself that your entire private life is in the shadow of deception and in the end you'll destroy yourself. Bird, the first signs of self-destruction have appeared already!"
" But that's a blind alley! Leave it to you to paint the most hopeless future you can think of. " Bird lunged at jocularity ... — Kenzaburo Oe

Have you come to help Me?"

The sensayer waited, uncertain whether the words were meant for her. "Help you how?" she asked.

The stone-still Speaker did not turn. "To understand the God Who made this portrait of Himself."

Carlyle looked to the altarpiece, the choirs of Heaven shimmering in their concentric circles of cracking paint and gold. "People made that, human beings searching for their own understanding."

"If God made Man and Man made this, it is still a Self-portrait. — Ada Palmer

She's kept her love for him as alive as the summer they first met. In order to do this, she's turned life away. Sometimes she subsists for days on water and air. Being the only known complex life-form to do this, she should have a species named after her. Once Uncle Julian told me how the sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti said that sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure. To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky.
My mother did not choose a leaf or a head. She chose my father. And to hold on to a certain feeling, she sacrificed the world. — Nicole Krauss

Dangerous forces lie within me. You awaken them, and not to your advantage. You know how to paint pleasure, cruelty, arrogance in glowing colors. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I'm interested in all kinds of art. I draw and paint and don't know how to play the banjo, but I do play the banjo. — Ellar Coltrane

The treads, like his father's boots, showed signs of wear. Paint clung to them in feeble chips, mostly in the corners and undersides, where they were safe. Traffic elsewhere on the staircase sent dust shivering off in small clouds. Holston could feel the vibrations in the railing, which was worn down to the gleaming metal. That always amazed him: how centuries of bare palms and shuffling feet could wear down solid steel. One molecule at a time, he supposed. Each life might wear away — Hugh Howey

A man can be an artist ... in anything, food, whatever. It depends on how good he is at it. Creasey's art is death. He's about to paint his masterpiece. — Christopher Walken

But Jace", Clary said. "Valentine taught him more than just fighting. He taught him languages, and how to play the piano"
"That was Jocelyn's influence." Sebastian said her name unwillingly, as if he hated the sound of it. "She thought Valentine ought to be able to talk about books, art, music ... not just killing things. He passed that on to Jace."
A wrought iron blue gate rose to their left. Sebastian ducked under it and beckoned Clary to follow him. She didn't have to duck but went after him, her hands stuffed into her pockets. "What about you?" she asked.
He held up his hands. They were unmistakably her mother's hands - dexterous, long-fingered, meant for holding a brush or a pen. "I learned to play the instruments of war, " he said, "and paint in blood. I am not like Jace. — Cassandra Clare

We are what we are, neither a good or as bad as others paint us. And what we are doesn't change how truly we feel, only how free we are to follow those feelings. — Melissa Marr

Great! I hope different police officers are here this time."
"Might be, but we're in the same police jurisdiction. I'm certain from the last time you were here, they probably have a record about you. What was it you said? You were playing some game re-enactment the last time you were injured?"
"Yes. How did your brother come up the idea of a paint-ball game? That's a good one."
"He's played them here before. He would like to bring the game back to our world, but we fight for real. — Terry Spear

The simple question 'What color do you want to paint that upstairs room?' might, if we follow things to their logical conclusions, be stated: 'How do I live, knowing that I will one day die and leave you? — Donald Antrim

As animals have no idea of the holy or the devil, they have no idea of the beautiful. The opinion held by some scientists that apes could paint, based on the 'paintings' apes had done, proved to be quite wrong. It has been confirmed that apes only imitate man. So- called 'ape art' surely does not exist. On the contrary, the cave men from Cromagnon onward knew how to paint and care. Their drawings have been found in caves of the Sahara, in Spain at Altamira, in Franc at Lascaux, and recently in Poland at Mashicka. Many of these pictures are thought to be more than 30,000 years old. Some time ago, a group of Soviet archeologists discovered a set of musical instruments, made 20,000 years ago, near the town of Chernigov in the Ukraine. — Alija Izetbegovic

Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare, or a witches sabbath or a portrait of the devil; but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That's because only a real artist knows the anatomy of the terrible, or the physiology of fear. — H.P. Lovecraft

That was when Angel Wells became a fiction writer, whether he knew it or not. That's when he learned how to make the make-believe matter to him more than real life mattered to him; that's when he learned how to paint a picture that was not real and never would be real, but in order to be believed at all- even on a sunny Indian summer day- it had to be better made and seem more real than real; it had to sound at least possible. — John Irving

Open-source software shows the potential of social norms. In the case of Linux and other collaborative projects, you can post a problem about a bug on one of the bulletin boards and see how fast someone, or often many people, will react to your request and fix the software-using their own leisure time. Could you pay for this level of service? Most likely. But if you had to hire people of the same caliber they would cost you an arm and a leg. Rather, people in these communities are happy to give their time to society at large (for which they get the same social benefits we all get from helping a friend paint a room). What can we learn from this that is applicable to the business world? There are social rewards that strongly motivate behavior-and one of the least used in corporate life is the encouragement of social rewards and reputation. — Dan Ariely

I'm a lifelong movie addict, and one of my favorite projects is making replica props and costumes. Nearly every one of these - from R2D2 to Hellboy's revolver - ends with the paint job. And it's not just cosmetic. The paint literally tells a story: what this thing is made of, where it's been, what it's been used for, and for how long. — Adam Savage

I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain. — Janet Fitch

I do not know myself how I paint it. I sit down with a white board before the spot that strikes me. I look at what is before my eyes, and say to myself, that white board must become something. — Vincent Van Gogh

About things you merely like? Would you rather learn how to plant a garden, work with friends to paint a house, or just have a great day with — Barbara Sher

I remember thinking how wise a man was HC Andersen. The king told his secrets down a well, and his secrets were safe. A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice. Some paint it with their own delight. — John Steinbeck

Ryder, we got a problem," Ristan called from beyond the other side of the etched-glass shower door.
"Someone had better be dying, Ristan," Ryder growled when he'd pulled
away from kissing me.
"They might be. You need to come see this."
"We will be right there," Ryder called out as I slid down his hard body.
He watched me with a smirk and then placed his hand on my arm to move me from beneath the water, so he could rinse off. I watched him, unable to pull my eyes off of his hands as they roved over his body.He was quicksand,
and I was sinking.
"Did you say we?" Ristan asked.
I blushed from my head to my Paint Your Toron-Toes Rose colored toenails. I opened the shower door and stepped out meeting Ristan's eyes. "Don't ask."
"How the ... did you sift into his shower?" he asked, bubbling with laughter.
"I said don't ask! It wasn't my fault. I was sleeping!" I shouted as both men laughed even harder.
"Real mature, just real fucking mature! — Amelia Hutchins

Walk with me, hand in hand through the neon and styrofoam. Walk the razor blades and the broken hearts. Walk the fortune and the fortune hunted. Walk the chop suey bars and the tract of stars.
I know I am a fool, hoping dirt and glory are both a kind of luminous paint; the humiliations and exaltations that light us up. I see like a bug, everything too large, the pressure of infinity hammering at my head. But how else to live, vertical that I am, pressed down and pressing up simultaneously? I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I invent what I want to say, you will invent what you want to hear. Some story we must have. Stray words on crumpled paper. A weak signal into the outer space of each other.
The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love. — Jeanette Winterson

The artists in my museum have never had any kind of formal training. They've never been taught how to paint like some of the famous artists you see in other museums. But that's why I love them. Their art feels more honest to me because it's not coming out of their heads, it's coming out of their hearts -T. Walker — Holly Schindler

Acting on desire is more like a craft, a science, an art. It takes careful mindful practice. Be patient and quiet. Listen, observe, take notes. Figure out what you want, privately, and then choose to want it, publicly. Put your desire out in the open. I want to go swimming. I want to bake bread. I want to paint a picture. I want to build a chair. I want to write a book. You act and then you fail. Over and over. And it's better to start failing when you're young, when all you lose is an ice-cream cone or a basketball game or an afternoon of fun. When you're older, the stakes are higher. If adults don't know how to want, then they lose a love, a career, a life. — David Barringer

It's no easy matter to paint a background. I venture to say that the old painters had more difficulty with their grounds than with their figures. You know the story of Vandyke brought to Rubens with this recommendation: 'He already knows how to paint a background.' 'That is more than I can do!' was the reply. — William Morris Hunt

At 13, when I was a runaway, I was taken in by the most amazing drag queens in Portland, Ore. We didn't always know where our next meal was coming from, but there was so much camaraderie and love. Not to mention, those girls could paint a face, and I learned how because of them. — Rose McGowan

That's how we like to play basketball, is be physical down there in the paint and force teams to the perimeter. — Bill Laimbeer

Now, I'm not even saying that girls shouldn't have princesses in their lives, the archetype in and of itself is not innately wrong, but there should be more options to choose from. So that was my intent, to demonstrate how ridiculous it is to paint an entire gender of heroes with one superficial brush. — David Trumble

Oh, Marya Morevna! Do you know how the church-folk call me, me and my daughter Gamayun, when they paint us on their ceilings? They call us archangels, and say that we live in heaven, where no vine of sorrow or memory grows. That is where I sent you, not to heaven - tscha! I know nothing of that place. But to a place like the ceiling of a church. — Catherynne M Valente

What makes some butterflies have such beautiful colors on their wings, and others not?" "The plain ones were born of parents who didn't know how to paint. — Anais Nin

If you use too much paint, you'll not only obscure your savvy completely, but most everything else in life will become dull and uninteresting for you too. You can't get rid of part of what makes you you and be happy...So a well-scumbled savvy gives you clarity and control...You have to let your own know-how, your own unique color, shine through as a something-special others can't quite put a finger on."

- Momma — Ingrid Law

When I paint a portrait I want to know more than just the looks of the person. I want to know how they live and what their feelings are ... It then becomes more than just physiognomy, but the feel of the person. — Jamie Wyeth

You see a child play, and it is so close to seeing an artist paint, for in play a child says things without uttering a word. You can see how he solves his problems. You can also see what's wrong. Young children, especially, have enormous creativity, and whatever's in them rises to the surface in free play. — Erik Erikson

People who want to know how stocks fared on any given day ask, "Where did the Dow close?" I'm more interested in how many stocks went up versus how many went down. These so-called advance/decline numbers paint a more realistic picture. — Peter Lynch

And still, still, there is more to describe-
we paint because drawing breath is an agony
and exhaling an ecstasy
and somewhere in the space in-between
we think we once found a truth;
and the eternal part of us desires
to share this truth at all costs
only it's never quite how we pictured it,
and it's never quite received the way we want
and the paint drips with our own blood
the handles of our brushes are our own bones
our own tears become the words to our most beautiful love songs
and we know we'll never get it right before we die-

getting up every morning and facing our own limited truth
is a courage so divine
most men quell and women stay enslaved in silence. — Marie Anzalone

Now and then when I get an idea for a picture, I think, how ordinary. Why paint that old rock? Why not go for a walk instead? But then I realise that to someone else it may not seem so ordinary. — Georgia O'Keeffe

He was becoming an effective human being. He had learned from his birth family how to snare rabbits, make stew, paint fingernails, glue wallpaper, conduct ceremonies, start outside fires in a driving rain, sew with a sewing machine, cut quilt squares, play Halo, gather, dry, and boil various medicine teas. He had learned from the old people how to move between worlds seen and unseen. Peter taught him how to use an ax, a chain saw, safely handle a .22, drive a riding lawn mower, drive a tractor, even a car. Nola taught him how to paint walls, keep animals, how to plant and grow things, how to fry meat, how to bake. Maggie taught him how to hide fear, fake pain, how to punch with a knuckle jutting. How to go for the eyes. How to hook your fingers in a person's nose from behind and threaten to rip the nose off your face. He hadn't done these things yet, and neither had Maggie, but she was always looking for a chance. When — Louise Erdrich

Grigoryevich...Not that he had any real talent himself - but what a lot of deaths of talented people he had witnessed. Young physicists and historians, specialists in ancient languages, philosophers, musicians, young Russian Swifts and Erasmuses - how many of them he had seen put on their "wooden jackets." Prerevolutionary literature had often lamented the fate of serf actors, musicians, and painters. But who was there today to write about the young men and women who had never had the chance to write their books and paint their paintings? The Russian earth is indeed fertile and generous. She gives birth to her own Platos, to her own quick-witted Newtons - but how casually and terribly she devours these children of hers. — Vasily Grossman

Art doesn't begin with a brush and a palette, but with the artist's ability to perceive life. You have to learn how to live before you can learn how to paint. — Dean Mitchell

I want to make portraits and images. I don't know how. Out of despair, I just use paint anyway. Suddenly the things you make coagulate and take on just the shape you intend. Totally accurate marks, which are outside representational marks. — Francis Bacon

One afternoon while driving back from the beach, Hugh pointed out a McDonald's bag vomiting its contents onto the pavement. "I say that any company whose products are found on the ground automatically has to go out of business," he said. This is how we talk nowadays, as if our pronouncements hold actual weight and can be implemented at our discretion, like we're kings or warlocks. "That means no more McDonald's, no more Coke - none of it."
"That wouldn't affect you any,"I told him. Hugh doesn't drink soda or eat Big Macs. "But what if it was something you needed, like paint? I find buckets of it in the woods all the time."
"Fine," he said. "Get rid of it. I'll make my own."
If anyone could make his own paint, it would be Hugh.
"What about brushes?"
"Please," he said, and he shifted into a higher gear. "I could make those in my sleep. — David Sedaris

Nobody taught Picasso how to paint - he learned for himself. And nobody can teach you to be a producer. You can learn the mechanics, but you can't learn what's right about a script or a director or an actor. That comes from instinct and intuition. It comes from inside you. — Dino De Laurentiis

I did not know how to paint or even what to paint, but I knew I had to begin. — Margaret Atwood

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint. — Pablo Picasso

And yet viewing several depictions of even an imaginary city, is enlightening in a way," Leibniz said. "Each painter can view the city from only one standpoint at a time, so he will move about the place, and paint it from a hilltop on one side, then a tower on the other, then from a grand intersection in the middle
all in the same canvas. When we look at the canvas, then, we glimpse in a small way how God understands the universe
for he sees it from every point of view at once. By populating the world with so many different minds, each with its own point of view, God gives us a suggestion of what it means to be omniscient. — Neal Stephenson

The world taught women nothing skillful and then said her work was valueless. It permitted her no opinions and said she did not know how to think. It forbade her to speak in public and said the sex had no orators. It denied her the schools, and said the sex had no genius. It robbed her of every vestige of responsibility, and then called her weak. It taught her that every pleasure must come as a favor from men and when, to gain it, she decked herself in paint and fine feathers, as she had been taught to do, it called her vain. — Carrie Chapman Catt

He smiled against my cheek and kissed me again. "Talking with you would be much more enjoyable than talking with Talia, Lilly." His eyes scanned the floor by my feet. "She's paint by number; you're watercolor." Things like that, moments like those, how do you explain to other people that no one else in the world can make you feel this way? — Amber L. Johnson

As an artist you have to find something that deeply interests you. It's not enough to make art that is about art, to look at Matisse and Picasso and say, how can I paint like them? You have to be obsessed by something that can't come out in any other way, then the other things - the skill and technique - will follow. — Anselm Kiefer

How could anyone not want to live when there were so many things to live for? There were rainy nights and wind and the slap of the sea and the moon. There were books to read and pictures to paint and music. — Michelle Magorian

I wanted to learn how to paint rather than just doing black-and-white work. — Bill Sienkiewicz

Spending time with you is like watching paint dry." Lassiter's voice echoed up to the stalactites hanging from the Tomb's high ceiling. "Except without the home improvement - which is a tragedy, given how this place looks. Do you guys always go for the gloom and doom? You never hear of Pottery Barn?"

-Lassiter to Tohr — J.R. Ward

You can sometimes avoid costly mistakes. Paint a corner of the room a certain color to see how the light affects it. Or buy just one yard of an expensive fabric to see how you like it in your room. — Alexandra Stoddard

Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it."
"I've got to paint," he repeated.
"Supposing you're never anything more than third-rate, do you think it will have been worth while to give up everything? After all, in any other walk in life it doesn't matter if you're not very good; you can get along quite comfortably if you're just adequate; but it's different with an artist."
"You blasted fool," he said.
"I don't see why, unless it's folly to say the obvious."
"I tell you I've got to paint. I can't help myself. When a man falls into the water it doesn't matter how he swims, well or badly: he's got to get out or else he'll drown. — W. Somerset Maugham

How many books did Renoir write on how to paint? — Cyril Connolly

In her book The Writing Life (1989), Annie Dillard tells the story of a fellow writer who was asked by a student, "Do you think I could be a writer?" "'Well,' the writer said, 'do you like sentences?'" The student is surprised by the question, but Dillard knows exactly what was meant. He was being told, she explains, that "if he likes sentences he could begin," and she remembers a similar conversation with a painter friend. "I asked him how he came to be a painter. He said, 'I like the smell of paint.'" The point, made implicitly (Dillard does not belabour it), is that you don't begin with a grand conception, either of the great American novel or masterpiece that will hang in the Louvre. You begin with a feel for the nitty-gritty material of the medium, paint in one case, sentences in the other. — Stanley Fish

I've always been interested in history, but they never taught Negro history in the public schools ... I don't see how a history of the United States can be written honestly without including the Negro. I didn't [paint] just as a historical thing, but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today. We don't have a physical slavery, but an economic slavery. If these people, who were so much worse off than the people today, could conquer their slavery, we can certainly do the same thing ... I am not a politician. I'm an artist, just trying to do my part to bring this thing about ... — Jacob Lawrence

Golden hands. It is said that all Poles have them, and that this is how you know your place in life, by the ease of your hands, that whether you are born to make cakes or butcher animals, cuddle children or paint pictures, drive nails or play jazz, your hands know it before you do. Long before birth, the movements are choreographed into the tendons as they're formed. — Brigid Pasulka

Is this necessary?" I said, gesturing to the paint and clothing.
"Of course," he said coolly. "How else would I know if anyone touches you?"
He approached, and I braced myself as he ran a finger along my shoulder, smearing the paint. As soon as his finger left my skin, the paint fixed itself, returning the design to its original form. "The dress itself won't mar it, and neither will your movements," he said, his face close to mine. His teeth were far too near to my throat. "And I'll remember precisely where my hands have been. But if anyone else touches you - let's say a certain High Lord who enjoys springtime - I'll know." He flicked my nose. "And, Feyre," he added, his voice a caressing murmur, "I don't like my belongings tampered with. — Sarah J. Maas

By the time of the arrival of Islam in the early seventeenth century CE, what we now call the Middle East was divided between the Persian and Byzantine empires. But with the spread of this new religion from Arabia, a powerful empire emerged, and with it a flourishing civilization and a glorious golden age.
Given how far back it stretches in time, the history of the region
and even of Iraq itself
is too big a canvas for me to paint. Instead, what I hope to do in this book is take on the nonetheless ambitious task of sharing with you a remarkable story; one of an age in which great geniuses pushed the frontiers of knowledge to such an extent that their work shaped civilizations to this day. — Jim Al-Khalili

If I was a painter, and was to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it? ... I should want to draw it like a Bat, for its short-sightedness; like a Bantam. for its bragging; like a Magpie, for its honesty; like a Peacock, for its vanity; like an Ostrich, for putting its head in the mud, and thinking nobody sees it -' ... 'And like a Phoenix, for its power of springing from the ashes of its faults and vices, and soaring up anew into the sky! — Charles Dickens

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. — Graham Greene

I paint by all the daylight we have and that is little enough, less perhaps than you have by much ... imagine to yourself how a purl must look through a burnt glass. — John Constable

Evan ran his finger across the faded leather spines. He laughed at how silly some of the names were: Paint Your Roses Red, Edelweiss and Me, World of Mushrooms and Fungi, The Toadstool Diaries, Daffodils Unseen and Exotic Plants Unleashed, to name but a few. — H.B. Bolton

Knowing how to paint and to use one's colors rightly has not any connection with originality. This originality consists in properly expressing your own impressions. — Thomas Couture

I was inspired by many teachers when I started my channel, Bob Ross being one of them. His voice was so soothing, almost like hypnosis. He was that great of a teacher, even the casual viewer could learn how to paint from watching his show. Growing up, I just remember him being so mesmerizing on screen. — Michelle Phan

I've always fixated on the things I want in my life--paint palettes and sumptuous fabrics and star-flecked skies and dancing on my tiptoes and the smell of jasmine. But I usually imagine myself alone or falling in love with all kinds of different people. These days, I've started to daydream of the permanent relationships I want to have. Friends who stay in my life forever. People who I trust to love me even if I'm wobbling--the way I trust Jonah. And if that's what I want, then I have scorched Earth to till and replant. I have a Japanese maple seedling, and I have seen how beautiful a rooted life can be. But I have miles to go before I decide where to plant us. — Emery Lord

It is amazin, she thinks, how simple appearances can be created - a rush, a smile, a new coat of paint, a slow, calm voice, a hug, a new dress - a resolve to keep out questions and cling to secrets — Mary E. Pearson

We have a language that reflects how we learn to paint, but not how we learn to paint our paintings. How do you describe the [reader to place words here] that changes when craft swells into art? — David Bayles

I'm not falling anymore. That's what L says, and she's right.
I guess you could say I'm flying. We both are.
And I'm pretty sure somewhere up there in the real blue sky and carpenter bee greatness, Amma's flying, too.
We all are, depending on how you look at it. Flying or falling, it's up to us.
Because the sky isn't really made of blue paint, and there aren't just two kinds of people in this world, the stupid and the stuck. We only think there are. Don't waste your time with either-with anything. It's not worth it. — Kami Garcia