Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

It is so much worse to be a mediocre artist than to be a mediocre post-office clerk.

Poetry is an art, the easiest to dabble in, but the hardest to reach true excellence.

Egon Schiele is my favorite painter. There's just something about art - photography, painting, music, plays - whatever you see, sometimes there's a gut reaction that's more important or more visceral than what your brain is thinking about. You can't explain that reaction. It's like what happens when you fall in love.

I would have loved to have been a painter or a sculptor. I'm still fascinated by those things.

I'm not saying I'm the best. There are many painters in the world. But there is only one Picasso.

I enjoy painting. It's an incredible release of tension, and I feel very excited doing it. I squeeze out some wonderful red paint, and I get a thrill. My heart starts beating faster. It's almost a sensual thing working with these thick acrylic paints. I almost want to put my hands in.

Even if we didn't make records, we would have done it on the side for fun. Like, some painters sell their work; others just keep it - they love to do it whether they get paid or not.

I was an art student when I was a boy, and as an art student you don't have to talk to anyone - you just have to paint really wonderful paintings. It's very unlike being an actor, where you have to talk all the time.

I've always been painting, even as a little girl I was painting on the doors and walls of our house.

The best of any artist is in their art.

My passion for painting is so sacred and personal to me.

My love of performers is not really different than my love for painters. Everyone's really high-strung and trying to do the best they can.

I haven't had the opportunity to study visual art, but it was always my first love when it came to artistic expression. I started drawing and experimenting with visual art when I was 5.

The art helps, between the acting gigs. I feel that if I can sing in Mamma Mia! then goddammit, I can hang a few paintings, give people lots of cocktails, and have a good time.

The poet who does not revere his art, and believe in its sovereignty, is not born to wear the purple.

I come from an era, in my world, where you just had to define yourself as who you are and what you do. I happen to be an actor. I happen to be someone that loves to act, that also likes music, that also likes to speak, and that also has an opinion.

A good indignation makes an excellent speech.

Art was always my thing. I had an art scholarship before I had a football scholarship. I'm a left-handed, right-brained, painting-drawing guy. That was always my skill.

Painting, like passion, is a living voice, which, when I hear it, I must let it speak, unfettered.

We launch our souls from the cannons of art and discipline, and on any one night, hovering over the chimney tops of Europe, halfway to the stars, there are armies of brightly spinning spirits that have risen like fireworks, tethered to the souls of those men and women who, by reflection, mortification, and devotion, effortlessly outdazzle kings.

My father painted, well into his 80s, what he called hard edge abstractions. It's really cool.

It's not 'natural' to speak well, eloquently, in an interesting, articulate way. People living in groups, families, communes say little - have few verbal means. Eloquence - thinking in words - is a byproduct of solitude, deracination, a heightened painful individuality. In groups, it's more natural to sing, to dance, to pray: given, rather than invented (individual) speech.

Despite all that I know rationally, and everything that I can put into words, I can say that I have difficulty giving up the notion of the nobility of art.

I am just a middle-class farm boy from Dodge City and my grandparents were wheat farmers. I thought painting, acting, directing and photography were all part of being an artist. I have made my money that way. And I have had some fun. It's not been a bad life.