Francoise Gilot Quotes

I don't think the roles that I'm necessarily known for in this country are my best work, or even anywhere near it. I didn't think I was great in 'Arcadia.' I think it's a great part and a great play and had a lot of attention.

What happened in the past that was painful has a great deal to do with what we are today, but revisiting this painful past can contribute little or nothing to what we need to do now.

I don't go around thinking about regret; regret doesn't consume me as a person... I'm not certain about whether any writer, any artist, any musician, can write without regret, so I don't think perhaps it's even particularly Southern.

It's never gone so far as me wishing I'd never done 'Quadrophenia,' but there was a time when I wouldn't talk about it because I wanted people to be interested in me for other things as well.

Forgive me, that I manage badly, Manage badly but live gloriously, That I leave traces of myself in my songs, That I appeared to you in waking dreams.

It was like I couldn't even begin to tell my mom I was singing. I didn't want anyone to think that she was trying to get me to sing. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it on my own. I really wanted to do a completely different thing.

There's mistakes that I have made. Some chances I just threw away. Some roads I never should've taken. Been some signs I didn't see. Hearts that I hurt needlessly. Some wounds that I wish I could have one more chance to mend, but it don't make no difference: The past can't be rewritten. You get the life you're given.

I think every record, good or bad, is a representation of us.

People spend thousands in therapy digging and digging in the past. When you dig and dig, you find relics. Try to forgive yourself and get back on that ride.

I try to give as much blanket forgiveness as much as possible in my life because that's the only way you can get past things and move forward. But, conversely, I'd like to be forgiven. In many ways, that's the bigger leap, the bigger transformation and the bigger step forward.

Looking back is a form of insanity, given that I could really never understand what everybody else was thinking. I find these days that I'm much more efficient when I just focus on what I need to do in order to move my family forward and get the focus off me.

My friend advised me to go into studying art, which at first shocked me because art was so easy. It was just something I did, like breathing or brushing my teeth. It couldn't be a job. I had a much more difficult time writing plays, making myself sit at that typewriter and finish those things.

I never compare myself to anybody. I don't look at my accomplishments compared to anyone. I'm happy with what I've accomplished in boxing.

You have to accept the fact that some people are never going to be for you. Treat them with respect, but you don’t need their approval to fulfill your destiny.

When people asked to buy my work I always said no. I'd had this rather rarefied idea that I didn't want money going through my head while I was making work. But after the car crash I realized that none of my work was owned by anyone. After that, I grew up a bit.

We cannot erase the past, but we can accept it as history.

In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.

I switched up so that I could work 12-hour shifts at the firm on the weekends so I could have days free to paint. But it was almost like I had a secret life, because I wasn't showing any of my work. It was just in my house. In '89, I got a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. That's when I started to get into group shows. Suddenly I sort of "came out" as an artist.

Don´t be unnecessarily burdened by the past. Go on closing the chapters that you have read; there is no need to go back again and again. And never judge anything of the past from the new perspective that is arriving, because the new is new, incomparably new and the old was right in its own context, and the new is right in its own context.

What do I want to let go of and what do I want to give myself to?

Before I can face the future, I must first deal with the past.

The older I get the more things I gotta leave behind.

Everyone has a past, but that's just it--it's in the past. You can learn from it, but you can't change it.

The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did.

You don’t need help to write a song. You just need to get over this experience that bummed you out so bad. The relationship you were in is over, it was over a long time ago, and you need to move on.