Milton Avery Quotes

I don't want to write, I'd rather draw.

Sometimes words are not needed, and the simplicity of expressing yourself through an art form is one of the best ways of communication.

If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.

A painting has a lot of advantages over other forms of communication. Unlike a movie, you don't have to put it into a machine and turn it on. It's just there every day. It's not limited by the element of time. It's a constant part of the home.

I will preach with my brush.

The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.

Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression. It is so spontaneous. And after singing, I think the violin. Since I cannot sing, I paint.

From the time I was three or four years old, I drew all the time. Drew all the time, every second.

Visual art and writing don't exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable of things the other can't do at all. Sometimes one picture is equal to 30 pages of discourse, just as there are things images are completely incapable of communicating.

I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don't know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words.

Doing fashion drawings was the only way I had to express myself when I was a teenager.

I hate cameras. I hate cameras and I hate camera phones. The camera's my worst enemy and my best friend. It's the way I convey my emotions to the world without saying a word, so I use it. People always say, 'You come alive as soon as the camera's on!'

Color is for me the purest form of expression, the purest abstract reality.

The moment you start to talk about playing music, you destroy music. It cannot be talked about. It can only be played, enjoyed and listened to.

I still do a lot of drawing on a daily basis.

Photography helps people to see.

I've always envied people who compose music or paint, because they don't have to be bothered with the sort of crude mess that language normally is, in everyday life and in the way we use it.

I just love photographing. I don't do it for anyone else.

Comics, in a sense, the style, the images - it's almost like music. They say music is a universal language, but when the eyes behold something, a figure, somebody moving; it's real, and it cannot be denied.

I just wanted to paint and sketch and tell stories by drawing.

Painting is but another word for feeling.

When I was just 13 years old, I even painted cinema posters.

Silent films weren't so different from my comics - the basic choice both offer an artist is what do you show and what do you tell.

Dancing doesn't have a language.

I express myself through my art.