163 Quotes by Irving Stone

All artists are crackpots. And it’s their finest feature.

These workers,” said Mendes with a gentle sweep of his arm, “have a hard life of it. When illness comes they have no money for a doctor. The food for tomorrow comes from today’s labour, and hard labour it is, too. Their houses, as you see, are small and poor; they are never more than a stone’s throw away from privation and want. They’ve made a bad bargain with life; they need the thought of God to comfort them.

Art’s a staple. Like bread or wine or a warm coat in winter. Those who think it is a luxury have only a fragment of a mind. Man’s spirit grows hungry for art in the same way his stomach growls for food.

There seemed to be that same fierce quest after truth, the same unafraid penetration, the same feeling that character is beauty, no matter how sordid it may appear.

Pain did curious things to him. It made him sensitive to the pain of others.

Do you call yourself an artist?” “Yes.” “How absurd. You never sold a picture in your life.” “Is that what being an artist means – selling? I thought it meant one who was always seeking without absolutely finding. I thought it means the contrary from ‘I know it, I have found it.’ When I say I am an artist, I only mean.

His mind was like a soup dish, wide and shallow; it could hold a small amount of nearly anything, but the slightest jarring spilled the soup into somebody’s lap.

Man’s spirit grows hungry for art in the same way his stomach growls for food...

The desire to succeed had left Vincent. He worked because he had to, because it kept him from suffering too much mentally, because it distracted his mind. He could do without a wife, a home, and children; he could do without love and friendship and health; he could do without security, comfort, and food; he could even do without God. But he could not do without something which was greater than himself, which was his life – the power and ability to create.