45 Quotes by Paul Smith

In a social studies class I did a paper on the history of Attica, which ended up being a little book that I created.

We’ve got a nation of people who have one eye looking out for the next speed camera, another looking for a speed limit sign and another looking at the speedometer – which is a bit of a shame, when you only have two eyes.

I was painting furniture, learning to stencil, and explore all kinds of traditional techniques of decoration. I learned from books that I picked up.

The environment itself was culturally a vacuum, in that there was simply nothing that would inspire me in the arts. But my parents were always very supportive of anything that I explored or wanted to do.

I think it was interesting that when you’re in those formative years you respond to things that interest you and don’t always know where they lead. But they accumulate and add up to something that enriches your later life or leads you to some new experience.

I was always busy doing something, being an only child.

My parents never prevented me from doing anything, but they didn’t have the knowledge of the arts that Mrs. Ranger had.

The Japanese are hard to understand, but once you do the world is your oyster.

At one point I had dreams of being in the school band, but I didn’t play an instrument that qualified me, and that was a problem. I always had fantasies to be part of that, but I did take my piano lessons quite seriously.