- “Do not wait for life to be picturesque, but try and see life under picturesque conditions.” ― Oscar Wilde, Lecture to Art Students
- “The beautiful part of being able to acknowledge your own creativity and becoming an artist because of it, is a badge of honor.” ― Efrat Cybulkiewicz
- “An ego and appreciation for truth, knowledge, and beauty drives creative efforts.” ― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
- “When you want to make the main color pure and bright, don’t just keep adding bright colors on it. Just make the colors around the spot darker and dull. It will give the scene dramatical effects.I think the life is the same.” ― Hiroko Sakai
- “Art is my cure to all this madness, sadness and loss of belonging in the world & through it I’ll walk myself home.” ― Nikki Rowe
- “Against this vision of hope, I find my faithful certainty—that everything will be beautiful, in the end. That God has a plan for the days to come. That love will triumph in all things, and my dreams are born with purpose. These moments unfold like a never-ending collection of poetry, written by the hands of the divine. The days are my own. Each one is made for me. With every twist and turn and tumble, I learn to step back and smile. For when we think we’ve got it made, when the days to come seem so predictable, that is when He shows us the substance of which this life is made.” ― Erin Forbes
- “The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.” ― Chuck Close
- “I’ve never been somewhere I belonged, but there are places where I think I could be happy. Like San Francisco. Well, do art museums count? Because I feel like I belong in them.” ― Heather Demetrios, I’ll Meet You There
- “There is an art in everyone’s heart, you just need to be fearless and come one step ahead, to implement it and you will win” ― Anuj Jasani
- “Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can’t explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.” ― Pablo Picasso
- “Freedom, makes me realize the beauty of life and nature, even death. A powerful desire that manifests itself through courage and that is something felt only if you are willing to live your life…And no, it is not easy to stay alive, that is not an easy task. But those who do, carry the symbol of freedom. You can tell a soul has seen hard times in their life, yet still has such a beautiful soul, even after they have passed away.Freedom… something artists know to do well.” ― Efrat Cybulkiewicz
- “I am not a finished poem, and I am not the song you’ve turned me into. I am a detached human being, making my way in a world that is constantly trying to push me aside, and you who send me letters and emails and beautiful gifts wouldn’t even recognise me if you saw me walking down the street where I live tomorrowfor I am not a poem. I am tired and worn out and the eyes you would see would not be painted or inspiredbut empty and weary from drinking too much at all timesand I am not the life of your party who sings and has glorious words to speakfor I don’t speak muchat alland my voice is raspy and unsteady from unhealthy living and not much sleep and I only use it when I sing and I always sing too muchor not at alland never when people are around because they expect poems and symphonies and I am nota poembut an elegyat my bestbut unedited and uncut and not a lot of people want to work with me because there’s only so much you can do with an audio take, with the plug-ins and EQs and I was born distorted, disordered, and I’m pretty fine with that,but others are not.” ― Charlotte Eriksson, Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving
- “People are always saying ‘talent’ when they mean ‘practice.” ― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk
- “I’ve always loved the night, when everyone else is asleep and the world is all mine. It’s quiet and dark—the perfect time for creativity.” ― Jonathan Harnisch, Porcelain Utopia
- “LABOUR is effort, while ART is effortless! What are you?” ” ― Ramana Pemmaraju
- “Criticise privately but compliment publicly.” ― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
- “Poetry isn’t one tool. It’s many tools.” ― G.L. Morrison
- “Only by examining our personal biases can we grow as artists; only by cultivating empathy can we grow as people.” ― Jen Knox, After the Gazebo
- “Every true artist is at war with the world.” ― Anthony Kiedis, Scar Tissue
- “And never ever compare yourself to other artists. Whether they are better, or worse, it only leads to despair …” ― Lucinda Riley, The Pearl Sister
- “The art I create ends up creating me, and this is my happy ending.” ― Efrat Cybulkiewicz
- “I create beautiful art, so I can look back on the life my body fell short of in such a way that it brings me peace.” ― Nikki Rowe
- “Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water.” ― Kamand Kojouri
- “All good work looks perfectly modern: a piece of Greek sculpture, a portrait of Velasquez—they are always modern, always of our time.” ― Oscar Wilde, Lecture to Art Students
- “Will we see the human behind the ink? The heart that dared to hold the brush dripping with color. Remember that she was the courageous one. That she was the one who showed up. Took the risk. Braved the secret disappointments of others. And lived. And made her mark.I love her for doing that.And therefore I can love her work…..There is a burst of courage that will explode off the canvas if we don’t shrink back afraid. The moment the painter laid down her brush and stepped back, pleased, is when she allowed that painting to steal a few beats of her vey own heart for you.The viewer. Close your eyes and receive this very human gift without any demand for more or better. And just show up and live.Show up.People need you. People need me. People need to know God’s compassion is alive and winning the epic battle of good verses evil.Put some paint on the emptiness. Color-correct your perspective. Forget the cravings for comfort zones. Trade your comfort for compassion. Don’t welcome hardness of heat as easiness of life. Get wet with paint. Put the brush to the canvas. Own it. Declare yourself a painter. And when someone steals all the lines from your coloring book, determine to color the world anyhow with the same generosity of compassion that God offers every day.Be like Him. The creator, the Master Artist.Don’t be like them. The hard-hearted haters. The ones who refuse to admit that their coloring books are missing lines too. The ones that refuse to break secrets with their fellow humans. The ones who would rather criticize than comfort. The ones who are loud with their opinions but who have never suffered with a blank canvas.Grab the brush, and light the world with your color and attempts at creation. Don’t try to be perfect. Don’t pretend it’s even possible. Don’t apologize or strategize. And don’t minimize that you are crushing fear and judgment with every stroke. You are walking the way of the artist. You are simply showing up with compassion. I love you for that. I love whatever is about to come to life on your canvas to the glory of our Almighty Creator. God. The redeemer of dust. The redeemer of us.” ― Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered
- “Be with someone who will love you wildly and fiercely. That fierce type love behind closed doors. And, most of all, when the doors are wide open.” ― Jill Telford
- “Dreams. They start in your beautiful mind. Think of beautiful things and it will manifest into actions because your body will listen to you. Like it always does.” ― Happy Positivity
- “Freedom, makes me realize the beauty of life and nature, even death. A powerful desire that manifests itself through courage and that is something felt only if you are willing to live your life…And no, it is not easy to stay alive, that is not an easy task. But those who do, carry the symbol of freedom. You can tell a soul has seen hard times in their life, yet still has such a beautiful soul, even after they have passed away.Freedom… something artists know to do well.” ― Efrat Cybulkiewicz
- “Logically, I know divinity’s just an illusion, but sometimes it seems the divine does manifest itself through art. Maybe there’s a spark of the divine in all artists?” ― Narayan Wagle, Palpasa Café
- “When the creator sees the illusion of fame for what it is, it loses its power over him.” ― Michael Gungor, The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators