Brian Selznick Quotes

I remember one day when Juan Gris told me about a bunch of grapes he had seen in a painting by Picasso. The next day these grapes appeared in a painting by Gris, this time in a bowl; and the day after, the bowl appeared in a painting by Picasso.

I always feel when you work with an artist and whenever I work with a really good photographer, I try to give him or her their own artistic freedom because that's the way you get the best work or at least the most interesting work.

When a designer creates, he looks at the world around him.

I've always said I'm more influenced in what I do by artists, and how they work, how they think, and the freedom they're given to work and think, than I really am by other writers.

I look at a lot of artists. I'm inspired by - I suppose I shouldn't say 'inspired,' but it's not really influenced. I am inspired. Art comes from art.

Stanley Kubrick was a big inspiration. People accuse me of never using my own material. But when did Kubrick? You look at his films and they are completely unique... completely separate entities.

Yes, influences are enriching, and they can be found in every work of art, even the most original.

If you look at any creative person's work, you can see bits and pieces of their influences. That's what an artist does.

The more I get to know more artists, the more they inspire me.

One musician listens to another musician, and you get inspired and then you do your thing, but it's yours.

If an artist may say nothing except what he has invented by his own sole efforts, it stands to reason he will be poor in ideas. If he could take what he wants wherever he could find it, as Euripides and Dante and Michelangelo and Shakespeare and Bach were free, his larder would always be full, and his cookery might be worth tasting.

Artists aren't looking for you to write them something; they're looking for you to give them something new.

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.

We artists can only go so far as the people can follow us. We are not alone, we are part of the system. We can take risks, but if you want to go to the peak of your consciousness, you may very well find yourself alone. Even if you know how to translate what you see, maybe only ten people will be able to understand what you tell. But, if you have faith in your vision, and retell it again and again, you will start noticing that, after a time, more people will begin to catch up with you.

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?

An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic.

[Personal life] doesn't affect my creative process. It just gives me more subjects to talk about. Basically whatever you put in your music is how you want people to view you.

Minor artists borrow, great ones steal.

Theatre artists are essentially sort of charlatans and thieves, I mean that's the tradition that we come from, so I have absolutely no, I make no bones about the fact that I steal from here and I take from there, and we all do it, that's perfectly all right, that's the nothing, there's nothing new in the world, there's nothing actually new in the way that you do something, but the point is is how do you take something and use it to articulate what is essentially a core of any given theatrical production.

A picture is first of all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy.

Art revolves around creating something that isn't there.

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

I've had the honor to be in sessions with great artists.

I always want to do something I haven't done before and get to work with other actors, writers, or directors that I want to work with.

What I've learned is that it's okay to take from heroes, such as Debussy, but it has to be filtered through my own personality so that ultimately it's me.