Kalman Quotes & Sayings

I truly believe there's always a solution to every problem. — Maira Kalman

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

It is impossible to know what fate will bring. If you love to write or paint, you will keep on writing or painting, and things will either work out or not, and you just have to keep being in the process. — Maira Kalman

Good designers are no longer satisfied in taking the manuscript from someone and making it look nice. One of the things that I've tried to do is move from being a designer to a content provider. — Tibor Kalman

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

Hell is having arms but no one to embrace. — Jon Kalman Stefansson

My mother was the influence on me - my father was absent. He was a diamond dealer; he was doing wonderful things in the background, and women were left at home. So my mother really was in charge of everything: the ballet, dance lessons, piano lessons, and latkes. — Maira Kalman

He is a monk. On his card it says INNER PEACE CENTER. I will go there in February for a tea ceremony. Does he actually know more than I do about inner peace? If he met my relatives, would he have a nervous breakdown? What about his relatives? Do they drive him nuts? The truth is everybody gets on everybody's nerves. — Maira Kalman

I'm always trying to turn things upside down and see if they look any better. — Tibor Kalman

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

To me, nothing is more vibrant than having the power to do something but not having the experience of knowing what's right and what's wrong. — Tibor Kalman

Isn't that the only way to curate a life? To live among things that make you gasp with delight? — Maira Kalman

Design is just language and the real issue is what you use that language to do. — Tibor Kalman

Some people ... cling to the idea that the photograph is an inherently real or honest image and as such is always on a different plane from an obviously subjective form of visual communication such as painting. — Tibor Kalman

Think like an artist. Dress like an insurance salesman. — Tibor Kalman

The hours are numerous and the clock seldom measures the time that passes inside us, the real lifetime, and because of this many days can fit into a few hours, and vice versa, and numbers of years can be an imprecise measure of a man's lifetime, he who dies at forty has perhaps actually lived much longer than he who dies at ninety. — Jon Kalman Stefansson

The best solution for little problems is to help people with big problems. — Kalman Packouz

He who has no dream is in danger — Jon Kalman Stefansson

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. — Maira Kalman

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

I don't listen to the news. I don't read the newspaper unless it's eccentric information - and the obituaries, of course. — Maira Kalman

The ability to take a walk from one point to the next point, that is half the battle won. — Maira Kalman

I live in a small world of gouache and brush and pen and ink. I'd like to explore the world of multiples - etching and prints. — Maira Kalman

The book. Calming object. Held in the hand. — Maira Kalman

Jump right in, or wade in slowly.
Advantage to one, it's over quickly.
Advantage to the other, it isn't. — Maira Kalman

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? — Maira Kalman

I have been working for over 30 years and am always wondering about where I am and where I am going. It does not stop and become a fixed event of achievement. — Maira Kalman

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. — Maira Kalman

I like Thomas Jefferson, though he intimidated me. I thought he would have been very tough to be around. I don't know if he had such a sense of humor. — Maira Kalman

On the wall was a dress that I embroidered. It said "Ich Habe Genug." Which is a Bach Cantata. Which I once thought meant "I've had it, I can't take anymore, give me a break." But I was wrong.
It means "I have enough." And that is utterly true. I happen to be alive. End of discussion. But I will go out and buy a hat. — Maira Kalman

If you go too fast you might not notice everything. On the other hand, you don't want to be late. — Maira Kalman

Oh, Tocqueville, you're the man. — Maira Kalman

I don't believe in politics; I don't understand any of it. — Maira Kalman

You'll never go wrong when you work with someone smarter than you. — Tibor Kalman

If I could never work again and I could just listen to music and walk, I'd be very, very happy. — Maira Kalman

If you don't have an idea, all you have is style. — Tibor Kalman

All terrific but the people. THE PEOPLE. Everyone looks so exalted, or so wretched, or so spiffy, so funny, so splendid. If you are ever bored or blue, stand on the street corner for half an hour. — Maira Kalman

Pictures are so good at giving people information that they're not looking for. — Tibor Kalman

I read obituaries first thing in the morning. With a cup of coffee. This is NOT MORBID. Just epic. Maybe it's a way of trying to figure out, before the day begins, what is important. And I am curious about all the little things that make up life. Little? — Maira Kalman

When you make something no one hates, no one loves it. — Tibor Kalman

Maira Kalman says, Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind. — Austin Kleon

If something does go wrong, here is my advice ... KEEP CALM and CARRY ON. — Maira Kalman

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. — Maira Kalman

Edits are very important to me - they're the way in which I work on everything. — Tibor Kalman

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. — Maira Kalman

Everything is an experiment. — Tibor Kalman

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. — Maira Kalman

The perfect state of creative bliss is having power (you are 50) and knowing nothing (you are 9). This assures an interesting and successful outcome. — Tibor Kalman

I believe that this whole question of some photography being true and some untrue is a non-question. Photography is not objective; it never was objective. — Tibor Kalman

Your children will smash your understanding, knowledge and reality. You will be better off. Then they will leave. You'll miss them forever. — Tibor Kalman

I don't want to trudge up insane mountains or through war-torn lands. Just a nice stroll through the hill and dale. But now I walk everywhere in the city. Any city. You see everything you need to see in a lifetime. Every emotion. Every condition. Every fashion. Every glory. — Maira Kalman

He wants to accomplish something in life, learn languages, see the world, read a thousand books, he wants to discover whether there is any core, but sometimes it's hard to think and read when one is stiff and sore after a difficult fishing voyage, wet and cold after twelve hours' working in the meadows, when his thoughts can be so heavy that he can hardly lift them, then it's a long way to the core. — Jon Kalman Stefansson

Bardur and the boy had leaned back a bit and looked at the sparkling sky that makes us humble and powerful at once and seems sometimes to speak to us. What is says carefully cleanses old wounds. — Jon Kalman Stefansson

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. — Maira Kalman

I like being a 10-year-old kid who's in charge. — Tibor Kalman

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. — Maira Kalman

If someone is going to permit me to make a publication that is politically and culturally progressive and not tell me to put their favorite movie stars on the cover, if I get to do what I want in an honest way - as I did in the beginning at 'Colors' - then I'm going to do it. — Tibor Kalman

Useless and precious objects. Taking up space. Taking up time. — Maira Kalman

I'm not against beauty, it just sounds boring to me. — Tibor Kalman

Perspective is a moment in time that cannot be fully appreciated until that moment has passed. — Tibor Kalman

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. — Maira Kalman

What is said determines who listens and who understands. Graphic design is a language, but graphic designers are so busy worrying about the nuances - accents, punctuation and so on - that they spend little time thinking about what the words add up to. I'm interested in using our communication skills to change the way things are. — Tibor Kalman

No matter what your cultural sophistication or what language you speak, everyone can understand images. — Tibor Kalman

The difference between good design and great design is INTELLIGENCE — Tibor Kalman

The man stands behind the man.
The seated man thinks,
"For heaven's sake, stop standing behind me.
You are driving me mad. It is February and it is impossible.
Someone has thrown onion skins all over the stairwell. Now I will have to clean them up - though I love to sweep. But still, it is disgusting."
But all he says is "I have to go soon."
Why can't people tell the truth?
It is impossible not to lie.
It is February and not lying is impossible. — Maira Kalman

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

Michael Pollan is a champion. In all ways. A man of great integrity, humor, and common sense and kindness. — Maira Kalman

Some people, surely, die on the way to something.
Then we call them the late so-and-so. — Maira Kalman

I use contrary-ism in every part of my life. — Tibor Kalman

When man spoke his first word he became the thread that quivers eternally between evil and goodness, Heaven and Hell. — Jon Kalman Stefansson

I don't like plots. I don't know what a plot means. I can't stand the idea of anything that starts in the beginning - you know, 'beginning, middle and end.' — Maira Kalman

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. — Maira Kalman

My sister is an artist and an interior designer. She went to high school for art. I went to high school for music. — Maira Kalman

I don't like anything permanent; I have to be able to flee. You have to be able to flee at a moment's notice. — Maira Kalman

There is no kind of music I don't listen to. Everything good is interesting. I am as happy with a Bach fugue as I am with a record by Thelonious Monk. — Maira Kalman

Consumer culture is contradiction in terms — Tibor Kalman

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

I am interested in imperfections, quirkiness, insanity, unpredictability. — Tibor Kalman

Let's face it: we live at a time when government is less and less powerful, less and less effective, and the agent of social change, at least for the immediate future, is the corporation. — Tibor Kalman

Go out and walk. That is the glory of life, — Maira Kalman

I'm not as good a writer as I'd like to be; therefore, I like to use images to tell stories. — Tibor Kalman

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

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

It's almost impossible to reconcile the realities of how one feels during the day, hour by hour. But I approach things not cynically. — Maira Kalman