Julian Barnes Quotes

I do not feel any artist can produce great art without putting great personality into it. It is always a piece of you that goes on the screen or the canvass.

I already have a wife who is too much for me.. she is my art, and my works are my children.

I finally got to the point where I decided I don't care if it's good art or bad art - it's what I do. I enjoy doing it, and people like it.

I can weep pretty easily. I can get tears in my eyes from a beautiful work of art.

I've never said, 'I live for art.'

Egon Schiele is my favorite painter. There's just something about art - photography, painting, music, plays - whatever you see, sometimes there's a gut reaction that's more important or more visceral than what your brain is thinking about. You can't explain that reaction. It's like what happens when you fall in love.

Bleed me of art, and there won't be enough liquid left in me to spit! [Michelangelo Buonorotti]

If you're mad at someone for being excited and inspired by your art then you're doing it wrong.

I didn't do so well in the academic world, so I think the only way I could express myself was through visual art - anything I could get my hands on, whether it was glassblowing, sculpture, painting, or photography. I always wanted to be a painter. Or a farmer.

The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.

[On gay men:] Let me say, a more artistic, appreciative group of people for the arts does not exist ... They are more knowledgeable, more loving of the arts. They make the average male look stupid.

The truth is, anyone who puts so much of herself and her life into art as you do must naturally fear any failure in that art as a potential threat to your life. And so you protect your art more than you protect your health or the common forms of happiness the rest of us have. And you probably have this in common with every artist you admire.

I love making art... It's largely how I see myself. I'm an artist; therefore I have to make art.

I never really consider myself as a great artist. I just always like to draw.

Unlike the photography and prints, I never catalogued, kept track of or exhibited the sketches. I sold some occasionally, but never saw myself as a graphic artist. They became more important to me thanks to the exhibition, however, and I realized that these drawings were quite interesting after all.

A life lived for art, is never a life wasted.

There's no right way. There's no measurement system. That's why, you know, art competitions are a little confusing to me. I mean, they're lovely, but so many people are affected by different people and different things in such different ways. And yeah, it's immeasurable.

Everything is there: the love of Art.

I don't understand why anyone would collect my work. Please understand... it's like writing Our House. It took me an hour, it was 30 years ago, get over it! But people say, No, no, it changed my life, and I don't understand that. I can't take that seriously as a producer of what I consider to be art. If they want to collect it, fantastic. If you see what I saw when I took it and it means something to you, then by all means collect it. If I make some money, um, fine.

And me I'm in my bedroom drawing in my notebook Because my hand thinks I'm an artist But my heart knows I'm a poet It's just words they mean so little to me.

I just try to be true to myself and write about things I'm passionate about. I think what most people don't like about movies is they can tell that most movies are a product, and they don't mean that much to the people who make them.

I always made stuff but never thought, I'm going to be an artist.

A great work of art is one that truly moves and inspires you. You yourself must be moved. Don't look at art with others' eyes. Don't listen to music with others' ears. You must react to art with your own feelings, your own heart and mind.

I'm very artistic - I feel like ever since I was born I've been drawing. I actually have a picture in my room that I painted, and people are always like "Where did you buy that?" It's cool that people are impressed by it.

Acting and making art is just something I love to do, and I love to tell stories that feel important, honest and necessary. It's not about me. It's about being part of something.