John Lautner Quotes

Through my films I'm eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don't know if I'm ever going to get there, but I'm slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I'm 85, I'll look back and say, 'All right, that about sums it up.'

Each film I make changes me in some way. When I start the picture I'm one person and by the time I finish I'm another.

I'm interested in everything. If I had enough time on this earth, I'd like to learn every art practice.

Sometimes for a lot of new artists, they don't have a vision, really, or know what they want to say; it's kind of drawn out for them. But me, because I'm such a transcendental thinker, it's always like a journey and an adventure with each project. It's like going through a different doorway each time.

The studio is a laboratory, not a factory. An exhibition is the result of your experiments, but the process is never-ending. So an exhibition is not a conclusion.

In any of the arts, you never stop learning.

I think one of the privileges of being a filmmaker is the opportunity to remain a kind of perpetual student.

Every time I make a film, I feel it gives me the chance to learn something new.

The reason I don't retire is that I learn something new every day. The brain has to be exercised the same as the rest of the body. It's about expanding, constantly pushing yourself.

I will never be the best dancer or artist. I will be growing until the day I retire.

The photographer's art is a continuous discovery which requires patience and time.

You should keep on learning as long as there is something you do not know.

This is one of my big things of creative pursuits. You have your idea you want to do, but then you got to figure out what does this thing want to be? You got to let it lead you a little.

I have a very, very secret drive to become a dilettante, without the pejorative overtones or the obligation to produce myself. There's so much to examine, so much to contemplate. I have enormous enthusiasm when I start a new project but then there's the meetings and the counter-meetings, the rehearsals, the struggles. You have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get your dreams realised.

Sometimes I have compared myself with a scientist or something: when you discover something and you don't expect the whole world to understand it. I always thought I was doing that kind of activity, in art and in music too.

View life as a continuous learning experience.

The joy of the creative process, minute by minute, hour after hour, day by day, is the sublime path to true happiness.

The grace to be a beginner is always the best prayer for an artist.

I'd like to speak a foreign language well enough to get the jokes. I'd like to talk with Socrates, and watch Michelangelo sculpt David. I'd like to see the world as it was a million years ago and a million years hence.

Painting is a companion with whom one may walk a great part of life's journey.

It's the most satisfying occupation man has discovered yet, because you never can quite do it as well as you want to, so there's always something to wake up tomorrow morning to do.

For me the journey of making a film is a journey of discovery as to what that film is. I mean what I do is what other artists do, painters, novelists, people that make music, poets, sculptors, you name it. It's about starting out and working with the material and discovering through making, working with the material the artifact.

And if you can find out something about the laws of your own growth and vision as well as those of photography you may be able to relate the two, create an object that has a life of its own, which transcends craftsmanship. That is a long road, and because it must be your own road nobody can teach it to you or find it for you. There are no shortcuts, no rules.

We need to connect with the image of an expanding source - one which never becomes stagnant or gets tired of growing and improving. And when we see there are no limits to our potential, we can tap into abundance knowing there's more than enough.