Jack Kirby Quotes

You could say that I have no inspiration, that I only need to paint.

For me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin.

Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument.

You don't know how much artists go through to make it look so easy. It's all in the practice.

For a sculptor, a painter, a weaver, a potter, the dialogue between one's materials and what one makes from them is easy to see: discover a new material or a new way to use a familiar one, and new things can be made, sometimes leading to the discovery of more new material, leading to more creation.

Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild.

A secondhand wardrobe hand clothes doesn't make one an artist. Neither do a hair-trigger temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, or HIV. I hate to say it - none of these make one an artist. They can help, but just as being gay doesn't make one witty... the only thing that makes one an artist is making art.

Growing up, I enjoyed drawing, but it was always in the service of an idea. I drew all the time, and I enjoyed making.

There's nothing more special than intellect and labour that makes painting work. There's no magic there; it's information, and it's work.

I know how to paint... In a way there is a boredom there because a lot of the magic is gone.

A journalist uses the most precise words he or she can. An artist does the same sort of thing. You gather material about a particular subject, you refine it as best you can.

I don't understand how people live without creating.

An artist cannot deny art, nor would he want to. A lover cannot deny love.

It takes skill to bring something you've imagined into the world: to use words to create believable lives, to select the colors and textures of paint to represent a haystack at sunset, to combine ingredients to make a flavorful dish. No one is born with that skill. It is developed through exercise, through repitition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time. . . . If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.

Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.

I gave myself over to music and art a long time ago, so I don't get to relax and I don't get to sit still. The best I can do is constantly create my own environment so it benefits what I need to accomplish in the next step.

To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

An editor is like a painter. There is a magic in that.

Art is the result of a creative impulse derived out of a consciousness of life.

I like the concentration, the crush; I like working with language, as others like working with clay, or notes.

A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.

I always say that intuition is the number one tool for an artist.

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest huts, in the dirtiest corner. And my mind is drawn toward these things by an irresistible force.

That talk of inspiration is sheer nonsense; there is no such thing. It is a mere matter of craftsmanship.