Robert Henri Quotes

Sometimes words are not needed, and the simplicity of expressing yourself through an art form is one of the best ways of communication.

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.

As soon as you start to think of that thing that you want to convey or say, you can always just say it much better than you can actually rhyme it or stuff it into a song. It's very, very difficult to just kind of get your point across without going the back way. And you have to be good at that, to not think about things so hard. Let the pen take over, so that it's somebody else's job to dissect the lyrics and tell you what you're all about.

One can usually put one's thoughts better in one's own words.

Sometimes one has to say difficult things, but one ought to say them as simply as one knows how.

If we are understood, more words are unnecessary; if we are not likely to be understood, they are useless.

Drawing takes time. A line has time in it

I find drawing a useful outlet for ideas for which there is not time enough to realize as sculpture... And I sometimes draw just for its own enjoyment.

The thought hath good leggs, and the quill a good tongue.

Uncommon things must be said in common words, if you would have them to be received in less than a century.

Writers who drew, they all seemed to draw the same way. They managed to keep that childlike creativity in their line.

Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.

Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Animations are really powerful - it's not just entertainment, it's a very cunning way to get good ideas across.

Why do we embroider everything we say with special emphasis when all we really need to do is simply say what needs to he said? Of course the fact is that there is very little that needs to be said.

I think of filmmaking as a form of communication. Maybe it's also an art, but that's for somebody else to decide.

Language designed to impress builds a gulf. Language to express builds a bridge.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy communicating and connecting.

Do but take care to express yourself in a plain, easy Manner, in well-chosen, significant and decent Terms, and to give a harmonious and pleasing Turn to your Periods: study to explain your Thoughts, and set them in the truest Light, labouring as much as possible, not to leave them dark nor intricate, but clear and intelligible.

Merely that you start off with ideas buzzing around in your head, and then you try to give them the simpler, more graceful shape, of a feeling that a reader might share. You learn to sing with, not argue at, your possible readers.

Everyone has to understand what we're saying to one another and there's no point in me thinking the line means this and the person I'm speaking to thinks it means something else. So there's a certain amount of analyzing of text that's of course necessary.

Line is the most powerful device of drawing.

What isn’t clear, isn’t French.

He wanted paper and something to write with, some way to sustain a thought, to place it in the world.

The understanding between a non-technical writer and his reader is that he shall talk more or less like a human being and not like an Act of Parliament. I take it that the aim of such books must be to convey exact thought in inexact language... he can never succeed without the co-operation of the reader.