“It's so easy to love. The only hard thing is to be loved.
[Vincent Van Gogh]”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“How difficult it is to be simple.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Normal people do not create art.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“First, we think all truth is beautiful, no matter how hideous its face may seem. We accept all of nature, without any repudiation. We believe there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris. We think pain is good because it is the most profound of all human feelings. We think sex is beautiful even when portrayed by a harlot and a pimp. We put character above ugliness, pain above prettiness and hard, crude reality above all the wealth in France. We accept life in its entirety without making moral judgments. We think the prostitute is as good as the countess, the concierge as good as the general, the peasant as good as the cabinet minister, for they all fit into the pattern of nature and are woven into the design of life!”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Art is amoral; so is life. For me there are no obscene pictures or books; there are only poorly conceived and poorly executed ones.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Loneliness is a kind of prison.
[Vincent Van Gogh]”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“You cannot be the good all the time — sometimes it is necessary to get angry.
[Vincent Van Gogh]”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“I cannot draw a human figure if I don't know the order of his bones, muscles or tendons. Same is that I cannot draw a human face if I don't know what's going on his mind and heart. In order to paint life one must understand not only anatomy, but what people feel and think about the world they live in. The painter who knows his own craft and nothing else will turn out to be a very superficial artist.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“You cannot be firmly certain about anything. You can only have enough courage and strength to do what you consider to be right. Maybe it turns out that was wrong, but still you would have done his, and it is most important.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“On croit que j'imagine — ce n'est pas vrai — je me souviens.
[They say I imagine — it is not true — I remember.]”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“I do not know a better cure for mental illness than a book.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Savoir souffrir sans se plaindre, ça c‘est la seule chose pratique, c‘est la grande science, la leçon à apprendre, la solution du problème de la vie.
[Knowing how to suffer without complaining is the only practical thing, it's the great science, the lesson to learn, the solution to the problem of life.]”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Reading has always been the largest and most irreplaceable pleasure for Vincent; reading about other people's successes and failures, joys and sufferings seemed to bury his own failures.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Life's not so bad after all. There are not only poison but also antidotes.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Someday my paintings will be hanging in the Louvre.
[Vincent Van Gogh]”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“After all, the world is still great.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“I will be an artist. I am sure I will.
[Vincent Van Gogh]”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“[...] And suddenly Vincent clearly realised what his subconsciousness had known for a long time. All the talks about God are just childish elusion, just a lie that calms a scared and lonely ordinary mortal in a dark and neverending night. There is no God. Sure as fate - there is no God. There is only chaos - dismal, painful, cruel, agonizing, blind, endless chaos.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“A person may paint or talk about painting but he cannot do both at the same time.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Everyone has their own personality, its own character, and if he respects that, everything would finally fall over for good only.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“The paintings that laughed at him merrily from the walls were like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed of. Gone were the flat, thin surfaces. Gone was the sentimental sobriety. Gone was the brown gravy in which Europe had been bathing its pictures for centuries. Here were pictures riotously mad with the sun. With light and air and throbbing vivacity. Paintings of ballet girls backstage, done in primitive reds, greens, and blues thrown next to each other irreverantly. He looked at the signature. Degas.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“There are neither good nor evil, only the existence and action.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Who loves — lives, who lives - works, and who works has some bread.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“The one who has not seen Paris in the morning does not know how beautiful it is.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Our secret thoughts - do they ever show up? The small flame of our soul can be burning hot, but no one comes to its warmth. Passersby see only a small whiff going through the chimney. Don't we need to take care of that flame, cherish it and patiently wait until someone will come and sit at it, do we?”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Sometimes men are generous and forgiving, sometimes angry and blind.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Nature always resists the artist at the beginning.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
“Being mad is even pleasant. But only a madman understands that.”
― Irving Stone, quote from Lust for Life
Irving Stone
Born place: in San Francisco, California, The United States
Born date July 14, 1903
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“At the age of fifty he was beginning to discover, with a sense of panic, that his whole life had been in the nature of a hangover, with faintly unpleasant pleasures being atoned for by the dull unalleviated pain of guilt. Had he the solace of knowing that he was an alcoholic, things would have been brighter, because he had read somewhere that alcoholism was a disease; but he was not, he assured himself, alcoholic, only self-indulgent, and his disease, whatever it was, resided in shadier corners of his soul—where decisions were reached not through reason but by rationalization, and where a thin membranous growth of selfishness always seemed to prevent his decent motives from becoming happy actions.”
― William Styron, quote from Lie Down in Darkness
“I will not fail,' the water bearer's daughter vowed. 'But worse than failing is not to try at all. For then there can be no hope of success.”
― Cameron Dokey, quote from The Storyteller's Daughter: A Retelling of the Arabian Nights
“He found Satan on his throne in the cavern of lava, reading a large-print edition of Wheatley’s The Satanist. 'It’s a rum way to warn people off from worshiping me,' Satan commented, indicating the book. 'It seems to be lots of fun, according to this. Still, I bet they all die horribly at the end. Oh well. Who wants to live forever?”
― Jonathan L. Howard, quote from Johannes Cabal the Necromancer
“Man, I didnt know anything like that was going to happen! Honest, Tex, he was on something. Holy cow! I really kid, I been doing this stuff for a year now and I never saw nobody pull a gun before! God Almighty! What if he hadnt missed!' -- Lem
'He didn't.' -- Tex
'What?' -- Lem
'I said he didn't miss. He shot me and it hurts like hell.' -- Tex”
― S.E. Hinton, quote from Tex
“Live, Princess, for me. I love You”
― Molly McAdams, quote from Stealing Harper
The Feynman Lectures...
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The Tibetan Book of...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
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