Quotes About Minimalism

Recursive metafiction worships the narrative consciousness, makes "it" the subject of the text. Minimalism's even worse, emptier, because it's a fraud: it eschews not only self-reference but any narrative personality at all, tries to pretend there "is" no narrative consciousness in its text. This is so fucking American, man: either make something your God and cosmos and then worship it, or else kill it. -Interview with Larry McCaffery (1993)

Every element in a design should be expressed to the extent necessary, but not beyond the extent necessary. Excess is noise.

Objects and environments that embody naturalness, simplicity, and subtle imperfection achieve a deeper, more meaningful aesthetic.

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

Keep things simple.

It is futile to do with more what can be done with fewer.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate. (Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.)

Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate [Plurality must never be posited without necessity]

Plurality is never to be posited without necessity.

It is futile to do with more things, that which can be done with less.

Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora [It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer]

It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.

Plurality should not be assumed without necessity

I am a man of simple tastes easily satisfied with the best

Anyone who uses more than two chords is just showing off.

but I have always thought that to need nothing is divine, and to need as little as possible is the nearest approach to the divine; and that what is divine is best, and what is nearest to the divine is the next best.

Life on a lifeboat isn't much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn't be more simple, nor the stakes higher.

The most beautiful rooms I have entered have been empty ones. Warehouses full of light and dust. Empty attics with a view. Coastlines. Prairies.

I'm more preoccupied with furnishing my head than the place where I live. The most beautiful rooms I have entered have been empty ones.

Tramping is too easy with all this money. My days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to forage around for my next meal... I've decided that I'm going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty of it is just too good to pass up.

The whole essence of good drawing - and of good thinking, perhaps - is to work a subject down to the simplest form possible and still have it believable for what it is meant to be.

The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.

Minimalism seems closest to the sophisticated storytelling of movies. Movies have really educated contemporary audiences to be the most intelligent, sophisticated audiences in history. We don't any longer need to have the relationship between one scene and the next explained. We will figure it out ourselves.