Edward Ruscha Quotes

Nothing speaks louder than an evocative photograph that stirs the imagination, tugs at the heart strings and engages the mind.

Then came the choreography... the impact of music and choreography tends to really emphasize an overall feeling of what you really want out of the program.

Only a fraction of the camera's possibilities interests me - the marvelous mixture of emotion and geometry, together in a single instant.

The camera can be a machine gun, a warm kiss, a sketchbook. Shooting a camera is like saying, Yes, yes, yes. There is no maybe. All the maybes should go in the trash.

I like to feel that all my best photographs had strong personal visions and that a photograph that doesn't have a personal vision or doesn't communicate emotion fails.

It's incredible, but I think a lot of people it shot over their heads 'cause they're used to just getting images and messing around with them, and for us to do something quite so 'designed' was a bit of a shock.

If the picture speaks to me, if it tells me something about myself, then I want it. Then I have to have it.

I'm really taken by the fact that my photographs live on somebody's wall.

If you're a photographer, you end up being the raw creative force that allows other people to see what kind of narrative you want to be giving or what kind of art that you want people to see.

The real purveyors of the news are artists, for artists are the ones who infuse fact with perception, emotion, and appreciation...We are beginning to realize that emotions and imagination are more potent in shaping public sentiment and opinion than information and reason.

The cartoon absolutely captures something that acres and acres of copy can't. And even photographs can't.

My real motivation came from my desire for music videos to have the same equal soul-touching emotional resonance that straight music does.

I think "artistic" simply means there's more of the creator in the thing. Whether it's painting or song or movie or game, the creator puts more of themselves into the piece, so when the audience see it, they feel something real, they feel something human, they feel something that's like a person.

I loved to press the shutter, to freeze time, to turn little slices of life into rectangle rife with metaphor.

I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively that when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit in people.

Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real.

But let's speak of art for a moment. Yes, art. I know a gentleman who makes excellent portraits. This gentleman is a camera.

I've ended up as a filmmaker who really loves the movie part of movies. That time in my life was a big influence on the kind of movies that I ended up making. I always think I'm going to make a movie that's gritty and real, but then I make a movie that's like an opera. I fight it at first and then that's just the way it is.

You think you photograph a particular scene for the pleasure it gives. In fact it's the scene that wants to be photographed. You're merely an extra in the production.

A film you can explain in words is not a real film.

A good filmmaker is someone who can look at a piece and go, "This camera's really going to be a character. I want people to feel like they're being punched."

Music and movie scripts are books. You want to be literally moved and that's the sort of things I look for.

There is a world of communication which is not dependent on words. This is the world in which the artist operates and for him words can be dangerous unless they are examined in the light of the work. The communication is in the work and words are no substitute for this.

In reality some images or drawings have a greater impact than many buildings that are built.

You must photograph where you are involved; where you are overwhelmed by what you see before you.