Design Feast Series: Quotes

“As an audience, I like fantasy movies, I like musicals, I like variety shows, I like Tony Bennett—it’s all the same to me. The fact that some things are more popular than others doesn’t make them better, and it certainly doesn’t make them worse.”

Ian McKellen, Actor

“I endeavor to make the composition tell a story.”

William Michael Harnett, Artist

“Simple, sincere people seldom speak much of their piety. It shows itself in acts rather than in words, and has more influence than homilies or protestations.”

Louisa May Alcott, Author

“Writers are always edging towards the nightmarish to live with, don’t you think? We’re off in a corner doing our weird stuff. I can’t remember where it comes from but the best definition of writing a novel I’ve ever heard is jumping off a cliff and having to invent the rope on the way down.

But it’s godawful hard work getting a good book together and even if you do it, it doesn’t guarantee anything. And it’s getting really hard now, all the time, for new writers to break out. If you’ve got any vague hint of originality about you at all, then you’re going to struggle at first. I was lucky that a small Dublin press, Stinging Fly, wanted to publish my first book, and that from there the reviews were good and I was able to keep going. I think the only workable definition of success for a writer is if you can keep going.

I think you’ve ideally got to limit your focus to your desk, and the peripheries of your desk, and not think too much about anything else beyond that—the wider context, what people will think. If you do that and get a bit of luck, everything will work out. Of course it’s hard to shut out the ambition. Every writer and artist has ambition in them. You want to be widely read. Many say they don’t but they’re lying. If you genuinely don’t have any ambition as a writer, then write the pages and go throw them off the side of a fucking cliff.”

Kevin Barry, Author

“There is no such thing as maturity. There is instead an ever-evolving process of maturing. Because when there is a maturity, there is a conclusion and a cessation. That’s the end. That’s when the coffin is closed. You might be deteriorating physically in the long process of aging, but your personal process of daily discovery is ongoing. You continue to learn more and more about yourself every day.”

Bruce Lee, Martial Artist

“The heart of [working in opera, tapestry, sculpture, puppetry, animation, film] is drawing, starting where you don’t know quite what you’re doing and discovering what the drawing will be, rather than knowing the script in advance and following it.”

William Kentridge, Artist

“It is easy to specify the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind.”

Charles Darwin, Naturalist, Geologist, Author

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

Dale Carnegie, Author

“Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life.”

André Gide, Author

“I read an article written by a young writer who had shown Philip Roth his book, and Roth had said, ‘Congratulations, and now quit because it’s a horrible profession, and all you you do is suffer.’ And my feeling was, there is only one proper answer, which is to extend your hand and say welcome and wish them all the luck in the world.”

Elizabeth Gilbert, Author

“A flower is relatively small. Everyone has many associations with a flower—the idea of flowers. You put out your hand to touch the flower—lean forward to smell it—maybe touch it with your lips almost without thinking—or give it to someone to please them. Still—in a way—nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small—we haven’t time—and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time … So I said to myself—I’ll paint what I see—what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it—I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers: Well—I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower—and I don’t.”

Georgia O'Keeffe, Artist

“Whether [she or he] is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.”

Walker Evans, Photographer

“What the Designer Ought to Be: Let the designer be bold in all sure things, and fearful in dangerous things; let him avoid all faulty treatments and practices. He ought to be gracious to the client, considerate to his associates, cautious in his prognostications. Let him be modest, dignified, gentle, pitiful, and merciful; not covetous nor an extortionist of money; but rather let his reward be according to his work, to the means of the client, to the quality of the issue, and to his own dignity.”

Milton Glaser, Designer and Illustrator