Quotes from Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

I think most artists create out of despair. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it's a painful, difficult search within.

The freer that women become, the freer men will be. Because when you enslave someone, you are enslaved.

A woman may not hit a ball stronger than a man, but it is different. I prize that difference.

If you have got a living force and you're not using it, nature kicks you back. The blood boils just like you put it in a pot.

My husband's family was terribly refined. Within their circle you could know Beethoven, but God forbid if you were Beethoven.

When you put things together, things that other people have thrown out, you're really bringing them to life – a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created.

The outside wold pressures you into a mold, but if you don't accept that - you gamble with life. Call it gambling.

I was discouraged about life, discouraged about people being blind, but I don't think I had a day that I ever questioned creativity. There has never been a day like that.

In the end, as you get older and older, your life is your life, and you are alone with it.

I've been so lonely for long periods of my life that if a rat walked in I would have welcomed it.

I see no reason why I should tickle stones or waste time on polishing bronze.

I think all great innovations are built on rejections.

True strength is delicate.

I feel that women 'and men,' but I mean the 'individual,' can be totally feminine and still be totally powerful.

I never feel age... If you have creative work you don't have age or time.

I've taught, and the first thing I did when I taught art, was not to teach art.

I still want to do my work. I still want to do my livingness. And I have lived. I have been fulfilled. I recognized what I had, and I never sold it short. And I ain't through yet.

I knew that a day I took away from the work did not make me too happy.

I don't demand that all work be a masterpiece. What I am doing is the right thing for me - that is what I am and this is living. It reflects me and I reflect it.