Sally Mann Quotes

I'm realistic about my age and realistic about the fact that there's an awful lot less in front of me than there is behind me. I've always felt that music is an art form that deserves to live the life of the artist.

What matters here are the works - finally without them his life would be uninteresting. What matters, that is, are the astonishing things that he left behind. If we can get the life in relation to the works, then it can take off.

Given my age, I am pretty near the end, probably, of my career as a writer, a scholar, a teacher. And I wanted to speak of things I will not be able to do.

I want to die painting.

I did once answer the question 'What would you say on your tombstone?' I know what I would say: 'Mario Cuomo, 1932 - dash,' and, 'He tried.' That's it.

Being middle-aged is about realising that you've lived most of your life. You don't have as much time in front of you as you have behind you.

I hope that my life ends up being my greatest work of art, not just my music.

I get to wake up every day and create music. And even when it's a tough moment as far as career ups and downs, it's always something you're passionate about, and it's a beautiful way to spend your life.

When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.

Retiring is getting ready to die.

I didn't know what to expect, having not been an artist before. From the outside, you only see romantic snapshots of what seems like a great lifestyle, and it is, but it's also grueling.

Obviously I'm delighted I'm a grandfather, but I guess it takes a little while to digest. You start thinking, 'Oh, I'm half-way over the natural life span. So this is the last bit, and I'd better enjoy it.'

As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to be very superficial evaluations or opinions about the significance of one's life or one's work. I was never given to it when I was healthy, and I am less given to it now.

Having a collection of regrets when you hit your 40s is part of the deal.

I think people don't realize how little of being an artist is making art.

As an artist, as a person, I don't want to be here for just a little while.

Meru is the culmination of all I've done and all I've wanted to do.

I think there is something very relatable in the idea that you hit a certain age, later in your life, where you realize you have to pick up the rug and see what's underneath it and deal with stuff.

The point of being over 40 is to fulfill the desires you've been harboring since you were 7.

We really feel the fact of our mortality after we turn forty years old.

Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before.

You do become more aware of your mortality as you get older. When you're little, you jump on any wild horse. Then you get a little bit older and realize how fragile life is, and you're more careful.

You don't retire from the movies. The movies retire you.

The years between thirty-five and sixty-five revolve before the passive mind as one unexplained, confusing merry-go-round. True, they are a merry-go-round of ill-gaited and wind-broken horses, painted first in pastel colors, then in dull grays and browns, but perplexing and intolerably dizzy the thing is, as never were the merry-go-rounds of childhood or adolescence; as never, surely, were the certain-coursed, dynamic roller-coasters of youth. For most men and women these thirty years are taken up with a gradual withdrawal from life.

I've been so lonely trying to become a photographer. If I'd known that before, I don't know if I had the courage to do it again. You get to a point where you feel that you have something that is your own. And if you don't find an audience for it, you are going to burst.