Frank O'Hara Quotes

My father is a visual artist, so I was influenced by him, and my mother is an English teacher who forced me to read a lot of books and poetry and get involved in theatre. I developed a varied taste for different arts.

At the moment, I'm certainly not thinking 'never again', but neither am I thinking 'I can't wait to play that part again'. I'm somewhere in between.

I'll be like Scarlett O'Hara-I'll think about it tomorrow.

The man in between waits between the two, not hearing the lie and not seeing the true. Unknowing what is and denying what seems, and there he will sleep, the man in between.

I create books for six-year-olds. I don't know why that time of my life was so important to me, but no matter what I draw, it always looks like it comes from a children's book. I can't resist. I'll set out to paint a serious picture then think, "Well, maybe there would be a little bunny in that corner."

I read, I think, I play, I work. And all that thinkingand playing and reading comes into my art. I couldn't really sithere and delineate for you what the thought process is. I can perhapssay that literature, psychoanalysis and theater have been very valuableexperiences that have informed and nourished me along the way.

She is unable to dream, think or love. In a woman, poetry never comes naturally, but always as the result of education. Only the woman of the world is a woman; the rest are simply females.

I think Lindsay Kemp really introduced me to the work of Jean Genet, and through that, I kind of kept re-educating myself about other prose writers and poets.

Yeah, I'd say there's probably about a couple of hundred people I admire - but that has nothing to do with what a person does themselves. That's why I never mention these things. You can read a detective novel you really like, but it had no bearing on what you do yourself, you just think, "God, how this guy wove this together!" Or you get into the energy of it. Or you see a poem which makes a great statement about sentiment, but it's not sentimental.

Unlike the background in many of the paintings that I was inspired by or paintings that I borrowed poses from - the great European paintings of the past - the background in my work does not play a passive role.

My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater. That always sounds so funny to people, comparing yourself to someone in the past that has done so much, and in your life you’re not even allowed to think that you can do as much. That’s a mentality that suppresses humanity.

I don't think there's anything really wrong with influence because I think that one can use another man's art as material either literally or just implying that they're doing that, without it representing a lack of a point of view.

I don't believe in originality in art. I think we exist on this earth to inspire each other, through our actions, through our deeds, and through who we are. We're always borrowing.

You know if I see a work that really I am very affected by and inspired by then it makes me want to try things with my work that maybe I hadn't considered trying before and I think that is the biggest complement that you can pay somebody.

I arrived on earth in 1928. Born into a milieu of painters, I acquired my taste for painting with my mother's milk.

I don't think I have written a poem when I was completely sober. But I have written a few good ones or a few bad ones under the hammer of a black hangover when I didn't know whether another drink or a blade would be the best thing.

I think any good artist - and I'm not saying that I am one - takes notes and should first emulate their heroes and then try to move beyond them.

I liked working in advertising, but don't believe my taste in art, such as it is, was entirely formed by TV commercials. And I don't feel especially conflicted enjoying a Mantegna one day, a Carl Andre the next day and a brash student work the next.

When I think of competition it's like I try to create against the past. I think about Michelangelo and Picasso, you know, the pyramids.

I think the biggest influence for me is when I hear a great piece of music, whatever the style, I'm kind of inspired by that greatness and I'm inspired to try and obtain something that comes close to that greatness.

I didn't really think of myself as being a muse.

There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric... But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art - he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.

You know, artists are influenced by other artists. We're all deeply influenced by what's around us; we don't make anything cold. Sometimes we think that we do. But within that, the most important part is that even though we're influenced, what are the levels of invention that we carry forth even as we've been influenced by something that's come before?

If you think a man draws the type of hands that you want to draw, steal ‘em. Take those hands.

Patti, did art get us?' I looked away, not really wanting to think about it. 'I don't know, Robert. I don't know.' Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art; or a saint.