63 Quotes by Philip Guston

Do I really believe that? I make a mark, a few strokes, I argue with myself, not do I like or not, but is it true or not? Is that what I mean, is that what I want?

I have a studio in the country - in the woods - but my paintings look more real to me than what is outdoors. You walk outside; the rocks are inert; even the clouds are inert. It makes me feel a little better. But I do have a faith that it is possible to make a living thing, not a diagram of what I have been thinking: to posit with paint something living, something that changes each day.

Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint? It might be things, thoughts, a memory, sensations, which have nothing to do directly with painting itself. They can come from anything and anywhere.

Studio Ghosts: When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics... and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you're really painting YOU walk out.

I should like to paint like an man who has never seen a painting, but this man -myself – lives in a museum.

I go to the studio everyday because one day I may go and the Angel will be there. What if I don’t go and the Angel comes?

There are so many things in the world – in the cities – so much to see. Does art need to represent this variety and contribute to its proliferation? Can art be that free? The difficulties begin when you understand what it is that the soul will not permit the hand to make.

When I see people making ‘abstract’ painting, I think it’s just a dialogue and a dialogue isn’t enough. That is to say, there is you painting and this canvas. I think there has to be a third thing; it has to be a trialogue.

In my experience a painting is not made with colors and paint at all. I don’t know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint?