Quotes from James Whistler

You should not say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.

As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color.

To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano.

Work alone will efface the footsteps of work.

Art happens-no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.

I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.

I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring.

I am not arguing with you - I am telling you.

You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.

I remember that at one time I always made a drawing before going to bed!! - Of myself I mean - though I finally destroyed most of them.

For art and joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand - fearing naught and dreading no exposure.

If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this.

Can't a person be born where they want to be born?

To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view.

It is for the artist... in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.

Work alone will efface the footsteps of work.

The work of a master reeks not of the sweat of the brow - suggests no effort - and is finished from its beginning.

An artist's career always begins tomorrow

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

People will forgive anything but beauty and talent. So I am doubly unpardonable.

If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

The rare few, who, early in life have rid themselves of the friendship of the many.

I always ask at once, 'Do you drink?' and if she says 'No,' I bow politely and say I am sorry but I fear she will not suit. All good cooks drink.