Quotes from Jenny Holzer

IF THE HOUSE IS BITTER COLD, ALL THE FLUIDS THEREIN, IF NOT FROZEN, ARE STIFF AND SLOW.

THE IMPULSE IS TO SQUEEZE AND FONDLE BABY WILD ANIMALS BUT THEN THEY'D BE BROKEN AND WHAT GOOD WOULD THEY BE?

FEW CAN IGNORE A BABY'S CRIES, EVEN IF THE RESPONSE IS IRRITATION. THIS IS ONE OF THE BUILT IN SAFEGUARDS THAT IS SUPPOSED TO GUARANTEE THE SURVIVAL OF THE RACE.

Laugh hard at the absurdly evil.

I get up about four times a night and go back to sleep, or not. Then I swill tea around 8 a.m. I answer e-mail, while I stall thinking about whatever scares me.

Well, I think in trying to make life seem real enough that one is moved to do something about the more atrocious things. By going really far afield into a completely fake world, maybe there's a chance to make things resonant somehow - or in this case, truly terrifying. To make it as bad as the real stuff that's happening.

One of the glories and terrors of working in public is that you do see if your output means anything to anyone.

It's important to keep life simple, and if I'm traveling, I only can do a couple of things, and those are the things that I'm meant to be doing.

I began to see that the short texts I was writing were poster material.

Turn soft and lovely any time you have a chance

Sloppy thinking gets worse over time.

So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.

I seldom have my stuff up unless I'm testing it. If I'm worrying about a painting, I put it up and see if I detest it quickly or slowly. Otherwise I have things by other artists.

The epiphany for me was that I wasn't a writer, and I had to do something with these texts. I put them in the streets as posters.

When my daughter was young, she thought all electronic signs were mine.

The desperate things seem to require attention, the lovely things seem to elicit celebration. If I had to choose, I would go to the awful in the hope that doing something could yield a happier result.

Protect me from what I want.

It's good to be employable, but I hope to show the truth. The paintings seem true because nobody wants me to do them.

Romantic love was invented to manipulate women

It can be kind of gruesome at times, making things alone. I don't want to be too dramatic, but it's hard. It's necessary to start most work alone.

I'd been doing projects outdoors for the public. I made pigeons eat geometry by putting bread out in rhomboids and triangles. I don't know if this activity made sense, but the work was available.

One thing that changed when I moved upstate was that I became interested in different materials. I started making the stone benches because I was seeing rocks.

Being alone with yourself is increasingly unpopular.

Expressing anger is necessary.