Bill Brandt Quotes

I cannot say why I wanted to paint. The only answer is in the pictures themselves.

All I wanted was to connect my moods with those of Paris. Beauty paints and when it painted most, I shot.

Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements.

I cannot live without art: it excites me, it challenges me, and it leads me to the next thing.

I don't believe that artists really are interested in money. That's not the motivation for art.

I do love to capture beauty in this world. And photos can last the test of time.

Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.

An artist is nothing without his or her obsessions, and I have mine.

There are two kinds of artists in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them, and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the beauty that has awakened their own admiration.

The image of a bedsheet ghost standing all alone in an empty house was something I was obsessed with. I really wanted to make a film about that image, and I was waiting for the right story to come along. When it did, I did my best to honor that image.

I've done my own videos, I do my own styling, so I feel like I've just always been a visual artist... I was one of those kids who wanted to make my own clothes and take pictures of everything. Everything inspired me, and everything felt like art around me.

I'm inspired by nonmusical things a lot, whether it's a film or a book or whatever.

After writing all day I go for a walk and see a piece of architecture i want to photograph and i have to take a picture and later a poem comes in my mind.

A photograph must come from imagination and not be a reflection of what is.

I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively that when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit in people.

I always wonder what drives us as Artists.

For me photography has been a profession, an avocation. Now it has become a way of life.

One of these days, I'm going to publish a book of all the pictures I did not take. It is going to be a huge hit.

I can't bear living in this huge beautiful world and not try to imitate it as best I can.

If you cut a painter's hands off, he'd still feel the urge to pick up a brush.

When a song wants to be written, it will be written.

Photographers have always been each other's biggest fans.

I'm a huge fan of animation, and just the arts in general - anything that emanates from someone's mind and soul and is capable of touching other people's minds and souls.

I make a movie because it's something that inspires me.

A visual understanding of great composition and how to use a camera and expensive lenses can be learned, but drive and a real hunger for making photos and telling stories... I don't think that part can be learned. You either have that inside, or you don't.