Kathe Kollwitz Quotes

No doubt, it is useful for an artist to know all the forms of art which have preceded or which accompany his. That is a sign of strength if it is a question of looking for a stimulus or recognizing mistakes he must avoid.

When I'm drawing, I'm drawing with the light, being completely open and creative. I can't draw in the evening. I need light and I need warmth if it is a summer thing, and I need cold if it is a winter collection. The good thing is that I have houses to go to whenever I'm working. I draw according to the place.

I really have the good fortune that the actors who work with me on 'The Leftovers' are thoughtful, hard working, open people and generous people.

Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.

A great artist is a great man in a great child.

I think that anything that leads to creativity and good work is good.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

One drawing demands to become a painting, so I start to work on that, and then the painting might demand something else. Then the painting might say, 'I want a companion, and the companion should be like this,' so I have to find that, either by drawing it myself or locating the image.

As artists, I think that one of the good qualities we have is that we're imaginative. We're resourceful. We like challenges.

Watching John Lasseter's films, I think I can understand better than anyone that what he's doing, is going straight ahead with his vision and working really hard to get that vision into film form. And I feel that my understanding this of him is my friendship towards him.

I have to go someplace where I can soak myself in a creative atmosphere.

The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby.

In the nineteenth century the more grandiose word inspiration began to replace the word idea in the arts.

Most artists work all the time, they do actually, especially good artists, they work all the time, what else is there to do? I mean you do.

A couple years ago I was going to back off and actually thought about retiring, but it keeps calling me back, and I'm going to keep going back as long as it calls me. I really think it has something to do with the good vibes that I feel I've spread through my performance and through the time that I've spent with fans.

Sometimes good television doesn't depend on money, it depends on imagination and good people directing, casting and doing the job with talented people.

Art has a double visage: it looks before and after. Romance is its forward-looking face. The germ of growth is in romanticism. Formalism, on the other hand, consolidates tradition; gleans what has been gained and makes it facile to the hand or the mind; economizes the energy of genius.

Unlike life, a work of art never gets taken for granted: it is always viewed against its precursors and predecessors.

A show is like it's own thing... it's a creation from so many people's talent and so much energy.

New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow everything from their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature or from life.

The great artist, whether he be musician, painter, or poet, is known for this absolute unexpectedness.

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists. An artist is someone who makes art too. He did not invent it. How it started — "to hell with it." It is obvious that it has no progress. The idea of space is given him to change if he can. The subject matter in the abstract is space. He fills it with an attitude. The attitude never comes from himself alone.

Art is a self-replicating force.

Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you're doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.