Pollock's Quotes & Sayings

I don't think my book is any more shocking than if I went out right now and brought back your local newspaper and found a story that happened around here yesterday or the day before that's just as shocking as anything in my book. — Donald Ray Pollock

For a slave to be taught that he should no longer lie and cheat with revolutionary; more astonishing still was the slave's discovery that he did not want to lie or cheat and that he now loved the owner whom he had once resented and feared. — John Charles Pollock

The way I saw the characters these things just happened naturally. At the same time - and I know it's probably not apparent when you read the book - but I really tried to hold back because I didn't want it to become a cartoon. — Donald Ray Pollock

His joy was a release of Paul's conversion, not the heavy backslapping practical-joking humor of the Victorians, nor the cynical satire or the flippancy of the twenty first century mass media, just the gift of not taking himself or his adversaries too seriously. — John Charles Pollock

I wouldn't care whether it was a laboratory or a carnival. But it's merely safe. Tell me, Mr. Pollock, what is the matter with Gopher Prairie? — Sinclair Lewis

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen. — Jackson Pollock

Part of the strength of Pollock and Rothko's art, in fact, is this doubt as to whether art may be there at all. — John Ashbery

To confess isn't to tell God anything he doesn't know. It's simply to agree with God on our wrong-doing and wrong-being: that we sin because we are sinners. — Jen Pollock Michel

Nobody really turns out too happy in any of my stuff. It's really strange, because I'm actually a pretty happy person. I'm not walking around giggling or anything like that, but I've got this feeling that everything is okay with my life. — Donald Ray Pollock

Dali's Reclining Woman Wearing a Chemise looks like a dead slaughtered doll, and I can see preying eagles, broken arrows, and jazz musicians in Jackson Pollock, and because I believe that Man Ray and Duchamp were lovers. — Dionne Brand

The people of Cody like you to think that Buffalo Bill was a native son. In fact, I'm awfully proud to tell you, he was an Iowa native, born in the little town of Le Claire in 1846. The people of Cody, in one of the more desperate commercial acts of this century, bought Buffalo Bill's birthplace and re-erected it in their town, but they are lying through their teeth when they hint that he was a local. And the thing is, they have a talented native son of their own. Jackson Pollock, the artist, was born in Cody. But they don't make anything of that because, I suppose, Pollock was a complete wanker when it came to shooting buffalo. — Bill Bryson

Every other piece of industrial design is a pot or a dish or something insignificant. But when you have a chair, it's like a sculpture of a person: it's alive. It's big. You can't miss it. It's a 'look at me!' item. — Charles Pollock

I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. — Jackson Pollock

A man's life is his work; his work is his life. — Jackson Pollock

Caregivers, like all of us, inevitably reflect their culture's attitude toward children and life. The story goes that when Pearl Buck was a child in China, someone asked how she compared her mother to her Chinese amah. Buck replied, "If I want to have a story read, I go to my mother. But if I fall down and need to be comforted, I go to my amah." Her mother's culture valued teaching and learning, while her amah's placed a greater value on nurture. Even as a child, Buck instinctively knew the difference. — David C. Pollock

I was a student at Harvard, and that's where I learned about so-called avant-garde music. Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism and painting were well known at this time. — Henry Flynt

They's a lot of no-good sonofabitches out there."
Arvin asks, "More than a hundred?"
Willard laughed a little and put the truck in gear. "Yeah, at least that many. — Donald Ray Pollock

Decades ago, Gerhard Richter found a painterly philosopher's stone. Like Jackson Pollock before him, he discovered something that had been in painting all along, always overlooked or discounted. — Jerry Saltz

Movies I remember in impressions. No matter how many times I see a film, my memory of it is like a Monet painting...or a Cezanne, depending on the genre. Sometimes all I can muster is a Jackson Pollock. My memory of experience is usually the same: I carry with me only the sensations it gave me, the general outline of its content, the essential colors that strained my sensibility in the moments I took it in. I don't remember dialogue or specific action. Only shapes and impressions. — Kim Cope Tait

But people like the doll guy who sells women and the dog guy who buys women, and other guys who, say, rape women, or maybe don't go as far as violent rape but treat women like objects instead of people - sure, there's a difference in the level of crime, but it's all the same thing, where women become a canvas for throwing emotional baggage, Jackson Pollock style. — Taylor Stevens

We tend to think that if a student is using a computer as part of an activity, then it's automatically a good activity. After all, they're using technology! But when we look at the results of that time spent at the computer, we really should be asking ourselves, how did this use of technology improve student learning? — Jane E. Pollock

I think there's a real problem if you're making a film - some people have done whether it be about Jackson Pollock or about Picasso - it's difficult for actors, because they have to impersonate a person whose image is very strong in our memories or in our consciousness. It's something that's very tricky, I think. — Peter Webber

You can't learn techniques and then try to become a painter. Techniques are a result. — Jackson Pollock

I'd rather sit next to Brian for two hours in a dark theater than have a wall painting party with Jackson Pollock — Jandy Nelson

I do a lot of work on computers, but I am so practiced in drawing that I can draw it full size, and you can take the measurements off my drawings. It's like drafting, but it's a work of art - a really beautiful drawing. — Charles Pollock

When I'm painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It's only after a get acquainted period that I see what I've been about. I've no fears about making changes for the painting has a life of its own. — Jackson Pollock

In asking for God's provision, we're admitting our inability to self-sustain. — Jen Pollock Michel

Though blue sky and the road's yellow dust and the green of the nearing oasis were all snuffed out, he (newly converted Saul) did not miss them. Light suffused his blinded eyes, his mind. — John Charles Pollock

As was the case in Requiem for a Dream, Pollock, A Beautiful Mind, House of Sand and Fog, The Hulk and Dark Water, Jennifer Connelly's mere presence in a film guarantees that things will turn out badly for the male lead, as Connelly is always cast as the Angel of Death. Fun to hang out with, great eyes, amazing eyebrows, but the Angel of Death. — Joe Queenan

I can't help thinking of Jackson Pollock, who poured, splattered and lashed the canvass with strings of paint. His process was about snaring not only a vision, but the moment the vision occurred to him. The paint becomes a net cast around something too fast to be caught. The bare spaces between the net's strands are as significant as the strands themselves because they hint at what can't be painted, can't be described. — Jocelyn Lieu

Jackson Pollock said once, "I don't really feel that many people in this world are alive." He said, "That's why I like you, Tom. You're alive." — Tom Robbins

It's hard to live a good life ... It seems like the Devil don't ever let up. — Donald Ray Pollock

To keep the edge, you just keep doing something new. I'm not gonna say that working is easy, but while I'm doing it, I'm just a happy little moron - that's how my girlfriend describes me. The fact that nothing might happen with those things is not the point. The point is, I'm doing new things, and I have a good feeling in my soul. — Charles Pollock

His (Paul's) entire personality within mutation. He was being turned inside out as he led Jesus light the recesses of his soul. — John Charles Pollock

The phrases of the Lord's Prayer, "are words we pray, not always because we believe them, but because we WANT to believe them. — Jen Pollock Michel

anticipated this trend in the 1950s, when it used Jackson Pollock's action paintings as the backdrop for a fashion shoot for its spring collection. For Indiana the experience was a salutary one. The wordage he utilised in his paintings had always been carefully chosen and carried great emotional resonance, much of it directly autobiographical. He was not a neutralist. He was not attempting to transform the word 'love' into a slogan or logo, but that's what happened anyway, and the effect it had on his reputation as an artist was considerable. Because of the commercial proliferation of the LOVE — Rob Chapman

The process is only a means to an end-creating the painting I want. It doesn't mean anything itself. It's only a way of creating a result. — Jackson Pollock

If people would just look at the paintings, I don't think they would have any trouble enjoying them. It's like looking at a bed of flowers, you don't tear your hair out over what it means. — Jackson Pollock

The painter locks himself out of his own studio. And then has to break in like a thief. — Jackson Pollock

A lot of people get the wrong impression, think there's something romantic or tragic about hitting bottom. — Donald Ray Pollock

Somebody can paint with a fine brush like Monet and do millions of little dots or somebody can splatter it up there like Kandinsky or Jackson Pollock and go "Yep, that's art." That's okay. — Patrick Wilson

It's impossible in our postmodern era for anyone to be original
for anybody to do what Jackson Pollock did ... — Irving Sandler

When you first heard him talking about it, you'd figure he was batshit crazy, but really, he was just trying to fill up his days so he didn't have to think about what a fucking mess he had made of everything. It's the same for most of us; forgetting our lives might be the best we'll ever do. — Donald Ray Pollock

With experience it seems to be possible to control the flow of paint, to a great extent, and I don't use - I don't use the accident - 'cause I deny the accident ... it's quite different from working, say, from a still life where you set up objects and work directly from them. I do have a general notion of what I'm about and what the results will be. I approach painting in the same sense as one approaches drawing, that is, it's direct. — Jackson Pollock

A romance is never just a romance, there's adventure, mystery and movement.

You need a grand, dramatic setting - the Swiss Alps were always an personal favourite of mine - and a chance meeting, on a train, a cruise, or perhaps the hero and heroine find themselves shipwrecked on a desert island.

The men are normally rich, well-to-do - but never vulgar with their money. Young men lack the maturity to take control so an older man is essential to provide the reassurance the heroine's needs.

There's always a fair amount of turbulence before he sweeps in to save the day. A happy ending is an absolute must. — Ida Pollock

It's my opinion he don't want to kill you,' said Perea - 'at least not yet. I've heard deir idea is to scar and worry a man wid deir spells, and narrow misses, and rheumatic pains, and bad dreams, and all dat, until he's sick of life. Of course, it's all talk, you know. You mustn't worry about it. But I wunder what he'll be up to next.'
'I shall have to be up to something first,' said Pollock, staring gloomily at the greasy cards that Perea was putting on the table. 'It don't suit my dignity to be followed about, and shot at, and blighted in this way. I wonder if Porroh hokey-pokey upsets your luck at cards.'
He looked at Perea suspiciously.
'Very likely it does,' said Perea warmly, shuffling. 'Dey are wonderful people.'
("Pollock And The Porrah Man") — H.G.Wells

Well, method is, it seems to me, a natural growth out of a need, and from a need the modern artist has found new ways of expressing the world about him. I happen to find ways that are different from the usual techniques, which seems a little strange at the moment, but I don't think there's anything very different about it. I paint on the floor and this isn't unusual - the Orientals did that. — Jackson Pollock

Because this is Beth's fight, and that's what fathers do for their little girls,' he said. — Tom Pollock

It would have been the equivalent of Jackson Pollock's attempts to copy the Sistine Chapel. — Malcolm Cowley

Our memories are like a city: we tear some structures down, and we use rubble of the old to raise up new ones. Some memories are bright glass, blindingly beautiful when they catch the sun, but then there are the darker days, when they reflect only the crumbling walls of their derelict neighbours. Some memories are buried under years of patient construction; their echoing halls may never again be seen or walked down, but still they are the foundations for everything that stands above them.

"Glas told me once that that's what people are, mostly: memories, the memories in their own heads, and the memories of them in other people's. And if memories are like a city, and we are our memories, then we are like cities too. I've always taken comfort in that. — Tom Pollock

Many of the most accomplished people of our era were considered by experts to have no future. Jackson Pollock, Marcel Proust, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Lucille Ball, and Charles Darwin were all thought to have little potential for their chosen fields. — Carol S. Dweck

Allan: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?
Museum Girl: Yes, it is.
Allan: What does it say to you?
Museum Girl: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.
Allan: What are you doing Saturday night?
Museum Girl: Committing suicide.
Allan: What about Friday night? — Woody Allen

Jimmy's eyes would turn as red and sticky as candy, and his head would fall back against the seat in a dream. If he were lucky tonight, maybe he would see something that he hadn't seen before. And then it would be my turn. — Donald Ray Pollock

Kyle, you are a mellow dude ... You can't be with an agitator. And that's what she is. An agitator. She's a Jackson Pollock and you're a Thomas Kinkade. — Genevieve Dewey

Joan of Arc came back as a little girl in Japan, and her father told her to stop listening to her imaginary friends.
Elvis was born again in a small village in Sudan, he died hungry, age 9, never knowing what a guitar was.
Michelangelo was drafted into the military at age 18 in Korea, he painted his face black with shoe polish and learned to kill.
Jackson Pollock got told to stop making a mess, somewhere in Russia.
Hemingway, to this day, writes DVD instruction manuals somewhere in China. He's an old man on a factory line. You wouldn't recognise him.
Gandhi was born to a wealthy stockbroker in New York. He never forgave the world after his father threw himself from his office window, on the 21st floor.
And everyone, somewhere, is someone, if we only give them a chance. — Iain Thomas

I'm interested in Jackson Pollock's kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it's nothing, and yet it's incredible. — Taylor Swift

In Paul's view a church should not merely survive in its unfriendly pagan environment, but advance. Christians should have nothing to do with a sad acceptance of harsh surroundings, bearing heavy crosses with uncomplaining gloom, cultivating an oppressive sense of sin. They were to be positive, doing good to one another and to unbelieving Jews and pagans regardless of abuse or injury. "Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks." No matter how adverse the circumstances, their way of life should be a rebuke to foulness and a spur to their neighbors to seek for themselves this new, extraordinary existence; Christians must outlove, outjoy, outthink, and always welcome those who opposed them. — John Charles Pollock

Most designers work up to a peak. They do some great stuff, and then it's just junk. — Charles Pollock

I continue to get further away from the usual painter's tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. — Jackson Pollock

If you deny that any principles of conduct at all are common to and admitted by all men who try to behave reasonably - well, I don't see how you can have any ethics or any ethical background for law. — Frederick Pollock

A chair, it's like a sculpture. It starts as a thought and then becomes an idea, something I might think about for years. When the time is right, I express it on paper, usually as a simple line in space. Finally, it takes shape. — Charles Pollock

When I first started out, I was trying to write stories about nurses and lawyers and a lot of people I didn't know anything about, and they just weren't working. — Donald Ray Pollock

I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish. — Donald Ray Pollock

God, by his own efforts and unflagging energy, recalibrates our heart's desire for his kingdom. — Jen Pollock Michel

... she wore a masterpiece smile with smudges of paint and graphite across her cheek, and her eyes were a Jackson Pollock painting. — Ellie Lieberman

Kingdom is a signpost to the holy. — Jen Pollock Michel

Two things are as big as the man who possesses them - neither bigger nor smaller. One is a minute, the other a dollar. — Channing Pollock

The pictures I contemplate painting would constitute a halfway state and attempt to point out the direction of the future - without arriving there completely — Jackson Pollock

The practice of the law is a perfectly distinct art. — Frederick Pollock

Our moral frailty is a strange consolation. — Jen Pollock Michel

I want to express my feelings, not illustrate them. — Jackson Pollock

TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background. — David C. Pollock

Down we felt as up we grew, dancing our didn'ts and drinking our dids. — Rachel E. Pollock

Don't get me wrong: I think that everyone should put forth an effort to do better, but let's face it, some of us are just plain luckier than others. — Donald Ray Pollock

Painting is a state of being. — Jackson Pollock

The most genuine acts of kindness are done without fanfare and when no one is looking. — Jason Pollock

Seldom was blue for blue's sake present till Pollock hurled pigment at his canvas like pies. — William H Gass

At length he told the Lord he would leave it in His hands. Peace flowed back. No voice or light disclosed the next move, — John Charles Pollock

Every good painter paints what he is. — Jackson Pollock

I'm not really a good reader. What I mean is, I think I'm not one of those people who can read a story and analyze it just like that. — Donald Ray Pollock

Disgust at idols strengthened his love for idolaters, and the man who once held Gentile neighbors at a distance now listened to their problems, fears, and temptations. — John Charles Pollock

New freedoms surface old habits. I haven't left sin behind, only discovered a new medium for my treachery. My real trouble as a writer isn't trying to mean the words that I write. It's living into the words that I mean. Nonfiction writing can feel like the high art of hypocrisy. — Jen Pollock Michel

I know the Pollock novel. Read it last year and liked it. Daniel Woodrell is awesome. I especially like the book Winter's Bone, and the film made from it. Larry Brown is terrific, all his work, but for me Joe in particular, also a good film, but a much better novel. — Joe R. Lansdale

Not all paintings are abstract; they're not all Jackson Pollock. There's value in a photograph of a man alone on a boat at sea, and there is value in painting of a man alone on a boat at sea. In the painting, the painting has more freedom to express an idea, more latitude in being able to elicit certain emotion. — Aaron Sorkin

Water, whether still or in motion, has so great an attraction for the lover of nature, that the most beautiful landscape seems scarcely complete without it. There are no effects so fascinating as those produced by the reflexions in nature's living mirror, with their delicacy of form, ever fleeting and changing, and their subtle combinations of colour. — William Montagu-Pollock

I love Francis Bacon. I just saw a great Jackson Pollock exhibit at the Dallas Museum when I was home for Thanksgiving. — Owen Wilson

Every act of seizure is an act of grace. — Jen Pollock Michel

..and only by assimilating into their community would they succeed. — Lindsay Pollock

When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school. — Donald Ray Pollock

Art is coming face to face with yourself. — Jackson Pollock

Most industrial designers do a bottle or a pen or a computer - things that go right past your eye. When you see a chair, it's almost like a person. It's this great big thing in front of you. It hits you more. — Charles Pollock

I listen to a lot of different stuff, from Mozart to Johnny Dowd to Monster Magnet. I don't listen to music while I'm writing a draft, but I do listen to it when I'm revising. — Donald Ray Pollock

I took a correspondence course with a guy at Ohio University. He gave me ten exercises, and one of them resulted in the story "Bactine." It pleased me a lot more than anything else I'd ever done, so I kept messing around and by the time I got to Ohio State I'd written maybe eight stories. — Donald Ray Pollock

A biographer has to decide between slowing to a halt in a bog of conflicting possibilities or striding boldly across by a causeway of conjecture. I choose the second course and, without stepping aside to discuss all the alternatives, tell the story as I see it. Paul's next eighteen months unfolded somewhat as follows, though the tone of assurance in my narrative must not disguise that some of its conclusions are tentative and disputable. The — John Charles Pollock

Dinner is a cacophonous exercise of holy sanctification. — Jen Pollock Michel

I like you as much as I like much prettier sane girl. — Tom Pollock

It cannot be assumed that equity was following common law whenever they agreed, any more than the converse. — Frederick Pollock

I don't paint nature. I am nature. — Jackson Pollock

I would like to write a book that wasn't so violent and weird, but I just don't think I can do that with my talent. I don't think it would come off. — Donald Ray Pollock

Bums are the well-to-do of this day. They didn't have as far to fall. — Jackson Pollock