I knew that I had to find out more about van Gogh. Even though I was far too young, and felt I did not have sufficient technique to write a book about Vincent van Gogh, I knew I had to try. If I didn’t I would never write anything else.
There are neither good nor evil, only the existence and action.
There is no thrill of mortal danger to surpass that of a lone man trying to create something that never existed before.
The maximum value of art is that it allows the artist to express himself.
All artists are crackpots. And it’s their finest feature.
I spend several years trying to get inside the brain and heart of my subjects, listening to the interior monologues in their letters, and when I have to bridge the chasms between the factual evidence, I try to make an intuitive leap through the eyes and motivation of the person I’m writing about.
No artist is normal. Who happen to be normal cannot be an artist.
From out of pain, beauty.
He made his colours, built his stretchers, plastered his canvas, painted his pictures, carpentered his frames, and painted them. ‘Too bad I can’t buy my own pictures,’ he murmured aloud. ‘Then I’d be completely self-sufficient.’
Who loves – lives, who lives – works, and who works has some bread.
No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him.
Pleasure is one of the most important things in life, as important as food or drink.
After all, the world is still great.
His mind was like a soup dish, wide and shallow; it could hold a small amount of nearly anything, but the slightest jarring spilled the soup into somebody’s lap.
How can a young person learn whether he chose the correct way? He thinks he has a special idea, and then he discovers that he is completely inappropriate for it.
An artist would not rise above the mediocrity if he condemns it.
When I have trouble writing, I step outside my studio into the garden and pull weeds until my mind clears – I find weeding to be the best therapy there is for writer’s block.
If it is noticed that much of my outside work concerns itelf with libraries, there is an extremely good reason for this. I think that the better part of my education, almost as important as that secured in the schools and the universities, came from libraries.
Art’s a staple. Like bread or wine or a warm coat in winter. Those who think it is a luxury have only a fragment of a mind. Man’s spirit grows hungry for art in the same way his stomach growls for food.
The brooding is better than the joy because even if the heart fills with happiness, it still mourns.
Reading is a stout-hearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-to-it-ness. It is also, in my experience, one of the most thrilling and enduring delights of life, equal to a home run, a slam-dunk, or breaking the four-minute mile.