Gerhard Richter Quotes

I love to create, and to me, the ultimate freedom of expression is a blank canvas or a block of clay to capture whatever emotions your imagination gives it.

Art is about the edges and the sharp corners and those places are not conducive to activism, which is about putting on a gloss.

What makes art in general, and literature in particular, remarkable, what distinguishes them from life, is precisely that they abhor repetition. In everyday life, you can tell the same joke thrice and, thrice getting a laugh, become the life of the party. In art, though, this sort of conduct is called 'cliche.'

I understand, as an artist as well as a producer, the need for there to be mystery and surprise.

Art is the great stimulus to life.

If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.

Even luxuries are arranged according to ideas and ideals, to make them reflect as much of thought-life as possible - and this is Art.

Without art we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of that perspective which makes what is closest at hand and most vulgar appear as if it were vast, and reality itself.

Real art is illumination, it adds stature to life.

It is the artists of the world, the feelers and the thinkers who will ultimately save us; who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing and shout the big dreams.

There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.

As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.

I don't believe in very many things, but art is definitely one of them. And at the top of that list, film and art influence our world's culture much more than many of us understand and fully respect.

I think the obligation of an artist is to make a difference in the world. That is what matters most to me. I think that artists are the leaders of the world because they do not have a connection to the industrial complex, the day-to-day short-term survival that most people are involved with.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

A great artist is a great man in a great child.

I want to do nothing chic, I want to have ideas before beginning a piece.

You don't base records on success; you base it on creativity.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

Art is longer than life.

I think that everything is part of creativity - the more you create, the more you have ideas, and the more you meet people.

I try and make little stories. Whether it's with a pencil or with bits of records, it's really the same thing.

The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.