To create one’s own world in any
of the arts takes courage.
Georgia O’Keeffe, American painter
One must from time to time attempt
things that are beyond one’s capacity.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French painter
One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself—I can’t live where I want to—I can’t go where I want to go—I can’t do what I want to—I can’t even say what I want to … I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.
Georgia O’Keeffe, American painter
Unless you try to do something beyond what you
have already mastered, you will never grow.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer
In spite of everything I shall rise again:
I will take up my pencil, which I have
forsaken in my great discouragement,
and I will go on with my drawing.
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter
The only cats worth anything are the cats who take chances. Sometimes I play things that I never heard myself.
Thelonius Monk, American musician
Jackie Knott, American painter
It is better to be hated for what you are
than to be loved for what you are not.
André Gide, French writer
Nothing is a waste of time if you
use the experience wisely.
Auguste Rodin, French sculptor
A beautiful thing never gives so much
pain as does failing to hear and see it.
Michelangelo, Italian artist
Every creator painfully experiences
the chasm between his inner vision
and its ultimate expression.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Jewish-American author
Sometimes, to pursue a new idea, the artist
must forfeit his deposit on an old idea.
Robert Breault, American operatic tenor
All great art comes from a sense of outrage.
Glenn Close, American actress
There are many victories worse than a defeat.
George Eliot, English writer
To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail …
failure is his world and to shrink from it
desertion …
Samuel Beckett, Irish writer
Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don’t like—then cultivate it. That’s the only part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping.
Jean Cocteau, French writer
Above all, it’s hard learning to live with vivid mental images of scenes I cared for and failed to photograph. It is the edgy existence within me of these unmade images that is the only assurance that the best photographs are yet to be made.
Sam Abell, American photographer
They who have conquered doubt and
fear have conquered failure.
James Allen, English writer
Rejection can disappoint you, depress you, and may even stop you in your tracks … learn not to take rejection so personally … if you’re honest with yourself and believe in your work, others will too.
Bev Jozwiak, American painter
If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a
sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.
Woody Allen, American filmmaker
Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try
Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett, Irish writer
You fail only if you stop …
Ray Bradbury, American writer
A minute’s success pays the failure of years.
Robert Browning, English poet
Some of the biggest failures I
ever had were successes.
Pearl S. Buck, American writer
Truman Capote, American writer
One must be a god to be able to tell successes
from failures without making a mistake.
Anton Chekhov, Russian writer
An artist, a man, a failure, must proceed.
E. E. Cummings, American poet
I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve
seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to
fear is failure of cleaving to
the purpose he sees to be best.
George Eliot, English writer
Even the knowledge of my own fallibility
cannot keep me from making mistakes.
Only when I fall do I get up again.
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter
He who is discouraged after a
failure is not a real artist.
Auguste Rodin, French sculptor
What separates artists from ex-artists
is that those who challenge their fears
continue; those who don’t, quit.
David Bayles, American photographer
Don’t give in to your fears. If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.
Paulo Coelho, Brazilian writer
I am the first to be surprised and often terrified
by the images that I see appear on my canvas.
Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter
Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after
that, fear has no power, and the fear of
freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.
Jim Morrison, American musician
Without fear and illness, I could never
have accomplished all I have.
Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter
I sometimes have a horrible fear of turning up a canvas of mine. I’m always afraid of finding a monster in place of the precious jewels I thought I had put there!
Camille Pissarro, French painter
The only thing I fear more than change
is no change. The business of being static
makes me nuts.
Twyla Tharp, American dancer and choreographer
It is necessary to put yourself out for rejection,
and accept that you will be rejected.
Robert Genn, Canadian artist
Melanie Peter, American artist
Insecurity prevents young artists from “flying” and older artists from being “down to earth.” Young artists should work on their confidence and the older ones on their humility.
Igor Babailov, Russian-American artist
Ask for no guarantees; ask for no security; there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth, which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away.
Ray Bradbury, American writer
One does not discover new lands
without consenting to lose sight of
the shore for a very long time.
André Gide, French writer
Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility. You do not know how paralyzing it is, that staring of a blank canvas, which says to the painter: you don’t know anything.
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter
In a world we find terrifying, we ratify
that which doesn’t threaten us.
David Mamet, American playwright
I still believe that at any time the no-
talent police will come and arrest me.
Mike Myers, Canadian actor
I always have a curious sort of feeling about some of my things—I hate to show them—I am perfectly inconsistent about it—I am afraid people won’t understand—and I hope they won’t—and am afraid they will.
Georgia O’Keeffe, American painter
We spend our time searching for
security and hate it when we get it.
John Steinbeck, American writer
Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give
up with such grace. What you need is
someone to take hold of you—gently, with
love, and hand your life back to you.
Tennessee Williams, American playwright
When I paint, I liberate monsters … They are the manifestations of all the doubts, searches, and groping for meaning and expression which all artists experience … One does not choose the content; one submits to it.
Pierre Alechinsky, Belgian artist
I am no artist—please come and help me.
Michelangelo, Italian artist
I still don’t know where I am
going to sleep tomorrow.
Claude Monet, French painter
Being true to yourself is what feeds
creativity, not self-doubt and criticism.
Diane Arenberg, American artist
If the Sun and Moon should ever
doubt, they’d immediately go out.
William Blake, English poet
Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended
by action alone.
Thomas Carlyle, Scottish writer
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know
that faith is his twin brother.
Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American writer and artist
Christian Nestell Bovee, American author
I felt so insufficiently equipped, so unprepared, so weak, and at the same time it seemed to me that my reflections on art were correct. I quarreled with all the world and with myself.
Edgar Degas, French artist
What still concerns me the most is: am I
on the right track; am I making progress;
am I making mistakes in art?
Paul Gauguin, French artist
Every work of art has its necessity; find out your very own. Ask yourself if you would do it if nobody would ever see it, if you would never be compensated for it, if nobody ever wanted it. If you come to a clear “yes” in spite of it, then go ahead and don’t doubt it anymore.
Ernst Haas, Austrian artist
But perhaps my art is the art of a lunatic,
I thought, mere glittering quicksilver, a
blue soul breaking in upon my pictures.
Marc Chagall, Russian-French artist
The greater the artist, the greater the
doubt. Perfect confidence is given to the
less talented as a consolation prize.
Robert Hughes, Australian art critic and writer
Doubts must be resolved alone within
the soul. Otherwise one would profane
one’s own powerful solution.
Wassily Kandinsky, Russian painter
As long as I keep getting rejected, I know
I must be doing something right.
Suzanne Partridge, English painter
I think it’s the people who have no doubt
that every word they put down is gold
that probably don’t write very well.
Dean Koontz, American author
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the
good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare, English writer
That painter who has no doubts will achieve little.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist
T. S. Eliot, American-born English poet
The analytical left brain not only breaks the painting into its components; it is also the doubter, the inhibitor, and the one that doesn’t want to ruin the painting.
Marney Ward, Canadian artist
Doubt is a central factor all the time. There’s always the doubt: What the hell am I doing out here in the middle of the woods, all alone, painting?
Neil Welliver, American artist
I know very well what I am about and that my skies have not been neglected, though they often failed in execution—and often no doubt from over-anxiety about them …
John Constable, English painter
Into each life some rain must fall; some
days must be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet
He that respects himself is safe from others;
he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet
No one but myself knows the anxiety I go
through and the trouble I give myself to
finish paintings which do not satisfy me
and seem to please so very few others.
Claude Monet, French painter
What I say to an artist is, “When
you can’t paint—paint.”
Joyce Cary, Anglo-Irish writer and artist
When I start to paint, it is real agony. I get nervous. The day before, I am already working up to it. Then I get to the studio and, once the image starts to emerge and come together, pleasure kicks in. And then you can see things that no other person can see.
Luc Tuymans, Belgian artist
Those who are willing to be vulnerable
move among mysteries.
Theodore Roethke, American poet
Instead of “What ever made me think I
was a painter?” change it to “What made
me a painter? Let me count the ways.”
Jane Champagne, Canadian painter
People need trouble—a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don’t mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.
William Faulkner, American writer
Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.
Scott Adams, American cartoonist
Success is often achieved by those who
don’t know that failure is inevitable.
Coco Chanel, French fashion designer
Sometimes a noble failure serves the world
as faithfully as a distinguished success.
Edward Dowden, Irish poet
Failure after long perseverance is much
grander than never to have a striving
good enough to be called a failure.
George Eliot, English writer
The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it—so fine that we often are on the line and do not know it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer
I’ve failed again!
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter
When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.
Napoleon Hill, American writer
If you can’t paint, paint big.
Audrey Flack, American artist
Whether or not your work was included
in this show should not discourage you
from continuing your artistic pursuits.
Jane Fulton Alt, American photographer
You have to know how to accept
rejection and reject acceptance.
Ray Bradbury, American writer
The effects of rejection can either kill
your muse or change your life.
Jane Champagne, Canadian painter
Do not take rejection personally … Every time you feel you’ve failed or have bruised feelings, crowd those thoughts out of your head with a personal moment that works … The art world is a series of daily adjustments …
Harley Brown, American artist