Elizabeth Peyton Quotes

To know oneself is to disbelieve utopia.

I am not a perfectionist. Perfection doesn't exist in real life. It's a wrong title for me.

I guess maybe I'm idealistic.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

Romantics consider common sense vulgar.

Whatever my situation is, I want to show that I'm not perfect, and perfect isn't real. The youth need to know that, especially.

A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

I have nothing against romance. I believe that we must hold on to the right to dream and to be romantic. But an Indian village is not something that I would romanticize that easily.

It's hard for me to characterise myself. I think I'm balanced. Some people might say I'm cold-hearted.

Become reality driven. Don’t kid yourself or others.

The anger and the creativity are so closely intertwined with me, and there's plenty of anger left.

Angry or not. It's a human emotion. But you can't walk around being angry all the time. What a dull person you'd have to be!

Fantasy Man's my favourite, I think, because he's sort of like Don Quixote. He lives in a fantasy world, but he gets jolted back into reality, and I guess that's me, really!

This sort of adoration of the real is but a heightening of the beau ideal.

...never let a passion for the perfect take precedence over pragmatism.

In the future I'm going to devote less time to sentimentality and more time to reality.

It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination.

To me, what I define as defiance, in some ways, is knowing the "reality" and having the ability to possess a realist mindstate yet still working towards the fantasy and still being childish. While still having the understanding and capacity that would generally inspire pessimism: some sort of more realist perspective that I think most people classify as adult. Anything like that and anything that's sort of fun.

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.

There is no realism without an element of idealism.

The days of idealism had gone. Only life was left.

You can't hate/love others without loving/hating yourself first.