Quotes from Irving Stone

Sa svakim novim jezikom ?ovek dobija nov život; jer ako znamo jezik jedne strane zemlje, možemo da upoznamo njenu književnost, njeno ponašanje i obi?aje...

There is only a God-given number of years in which to work and fulfill yourself. Don't squander them.

I wanted the figures to be real and believable so that you would feel that with their very next breath would begin life itself.

Art has a magic quality: the more minds that digest it, the longer it lives.

I'm never less alone than when alone. And he sighed, for he knew himself to be a victim of his own character.

How could he have been so stupid, so blind? David pictured after Goliath could be no one but the biblical David, a special individual. He was not content to portray one man; he was seeking universal man, Everyman, all of whom,from the beginning of time, had faced a decision to strike for freedom

He turned, stood above the crowd gazing up at him. There was silence in the square. And yet he had never felt such complete communication. It was as though they read each other's thoughts, as though they were one and the same: they were part of him,every Florentine standing below, eyes turned up to him, and he was a part of them.

He had come into the autumn of his life: a man had his seasons, even as had the earth. Was the harvesting of autumn less important than the seeding of spring? Each without the other was meaningless.

He was spilling out a year of his life blood with every convulsive painting that he tore from his vitals. It was not the length of his stay on earth that mattered to him ; it was what he did with the days of his life. For him time would have to be measured by the paintings he poured out, not by the fluttering leaves of a calendar.

A work of art meant growth from the particular to the universal. To a work of art, time brought timelessness.

Tell me, please,' Van Gogh asked, 'is it justifiable that a person wastes his only life by selling worthless paintings for fools?

Have you ever been in love? ...in a way. It's always 'in a way.

God is imagined as a rich, old gentleman who is very happy that things are going so smooth here on Earth that he had created.

Time has a texture. Each period of waiting looms its own design. For Abigail, this one was shot through with golden threads. -Those Who Love, p. 130

The simplest things that need self-restraint are the most difficult to replicate.

I do like to teach. Sitting in my great chair at school, I used to consider myself as some dictator at the head of a commonwealth...To fire a newborn soul with ardor for learning! At that time I thought the world could afford no greater pleasure.' - Those Who Love, p. 177

Art is amoral; so is life.

Only suffering grows big artists.

He turned, stood above the crowd gazing up at him. There was silence in the square. And yet he had never felt such complete communication.

Fortune is beastly — it is only suitable for cows and businessmen.

Život je putovanje od kolevke do groba; svi idemo istim putem, bilo kra?im ili dužim. Ali potrebno je samo jedno: da usput volimo.

I have to make my drawing right so that my drawing will be right.

evil was vulnerable, even though it wore armor weighing a thousand pounds. There would always be some spot in it which was u defended; and if the good in man were dominant it would find that exposed area and evolve a way to penetrate it. The emotion must convey the idea that his conflict with Goliath was a parable of good and evil.

sculpture bore the relationship the truth did to falsehood... if a painter blundered, what did he do? He patched and repaired and covered over with another layer of paint. The sculptor on the contrary had to see within th marble the form that it held. He could not glue back broken parts.