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Portraits Quotes

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Portraits Quotes

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”

ArtBookFeelingsPainArtistPaintingDrinkBeerGrayPortraitsBeing An ArtistPortraitureInspirational ArtistSelf PortraitDorian GreyPortrait Of Dorian GrayPainting And ArtArt LifeArtists Minds
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts
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“When I look in the mirror, I am slightly reminded of self-portraits by Durer and by Rembrandt, because they both show a degree of introspection. I see some element of disappointment; I see a sense of humour, but also something that is faintly ridiculous; and I see somebody who is frightened of being found out and thought lightweight.”

LooksSelfShowsFoundHumourDegreesElementsMirrorsDisappointmentRidiculousFrightenedPortraitsIntrospectionSelf Portrait
Author:Robert Winston
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“A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

MomentsFactsEmotionOpinionPhotographyPhotographerPhotographTransformedAccuratePortraitsPhotography By PhotographersInspirational PhotographyPhoto ShootsDigital PhotographyFilm PhotographyPhotography And Film
Author:Richard Avedon
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“I had not seen "Pride and Prejudice," till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.”

ShouldBookCountryFacesHouseCommonAirFlowerPrideGardenPrejudiceBlueSentencesHillsBordersGentlemanDelicateAccuratePortraitsGlancesElegantVividConfinedNeatFresh AirLadies And GentlemenPhysiognomyDelicate Flower
Author:Charlotte Bronte
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“Jeanne, I fell asleep among the paintings, where I could sit for many days worshipping your portrait. I fell in love with your portrait, Jeanne, because it will never change. I have such a fear of seeing you grow old, Jeanne, I fell in love with an unchanging you that will never be taken away from me. I was wishing you would die, so that no one could take you away from me, and I would love the painting of you as you would look eternally.”

LooksDiesWishGrowsTakenSeeingPaintingPortraitsNever ChangeUnchanging
Author:Anais Nin
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“She stood looking carefully at the labeled portraits Ursala had put up: Little Crow, Chief of the Santees, Geronimo, last of the Apaches, and Ursala's favorite, Big Foot, dying in the snow at Wounded Knee. "Isn't that where the massacre was?" asked Ellen. "Yes. I'm going to go there when I'm grown up. To Wounded Knee." "That seems sensible," said Ellen.”

LittlesSaidBigsSeemsLastsFeetDyingSnowChiefsKneesSensibleWoundedPortraitsCrowMassacresApachesWounded Knee
Book:A Song for Summer
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“Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions." "I hate them for it," cried Hallward. "An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what is it; and for that the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldShouldHeartArtShowsRunningAgeBeautifulFormArtistHatePassionLostKnow HowPoetBrokenTreatsI HateAbstractMeant To BeGrayCriedBeautiful ThingsPortraitsAutobiographyPublicationWere Meant To BePortrait Of Dorian Gray
Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Story of a Fashionable Young Man Who Sells His Soul for Eternal Youth and Beauty (Beloved Books Edition)
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“at last you, will say (maybe without speaking) (there are mountains inside your skull garden and chaos, ocean and hurricane; certain corners of rooms, portraits of great-grandmothers, curtains of a particular shade; your deserts; your private dinosaurs; the first woman) all i need to know: tell me everything just as it was from the beginning.”

KnowsNeedsFirstsLastsCertainRoomsParticularMountainOceanGardenChaosCornersDesertGrandmotherShadePortraitsCurtainsHurricanesSkullsDinosaursGreat Grandmother
Book:Selected Poems: 1965-1975
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“We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadn’t dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think we’ll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear.”

ThinkingWritingArtSelfFactsDesireGamesWinningLostBehindsClassWrittenPaperMy FamilyLettersLeavingHardestSoccerNosesChairsPortraitsTerrifiedSaturdayHumiliationCheerfulEarnestDiariesDecreaseScrapBlandSelf PortraitArt Class
Book:Prep: a novel
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“Everything is a self-portrait. A diary. Your whole drug history’s in a strand of your hair. Your fingernails. The forensic details. The lining of your stomach is a document. The calluses on your hand tell all your secrets. Your teeth give you away. Your accent. The wrinkles around your mouth and eyes. Everything you do shows your hand.”

GivingSelfWholeShowsHandsEyeSecretHairDrugMouthsDetailsTeethStomachAccentsDocumentsPortraitsDiariesWrinklesStrandsFingernailsSelf PortraitForensicsSelf Portrait PhotographyCalluses
Book:Diary: A Novel
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“There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.”

IfsWayNeedsFeelsShouldHeartHas BeensSchoolCertainTimeTurnsNamesGriefGoneCuttingHeardCryFineMonthsOkayWake UpCleanLimitationGrievingRacingDesksPortraitsArtworkRefrigeratorsStatutesHeart Racing
Author:Jodi Picoult
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“In life man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing. No doubt this thought may seem harsh to someone who has not made a success of his life. But on the other hand, it helps people to understand that reality alone counts, and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream, aborted hopes, and futile expectations.”

PeopleMenMayMadeHelpingDreamHandsRealitySeemsDoubtBrokenDrawsExpectationsCommitNo DoubtExistentialismHarshPortraitsBroken Dreams
Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
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“OF writing many books there is no end; And I who have written much in prose and verse For others' uses, will write now for mine,- Will write my story for my better self, As when you paint your portrait for a friend, Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it Long after he has ceased to love you, just To hold together what he was and is.”

WritingLooksLongBookEndsSelfStoriesUseTogetherWrittenLove YouMinesPaintProseVersesPortraitsDrawers
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Illustrated)
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“He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights. 'White to play and mate in two moves.' Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother. White always mates, he thought with a sort of cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so arranged. In no chess problem since the beginning of the world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying triumph of Good over Evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power. White always mates.”

WorldTwoPlayProblemBigsFacesMovingEvilBlackWhitePiecesBrotherHugeCoupleEternalCalmChessTriumphExceptionMysticismMatesPortraitsKnightsTrickyInvolvingCloudyGood Over Evil
Book:1984
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“the growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humour. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third – before long the best lines cancel out – and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true”

GivingFirstsChildrenLongLastsGivenGrowthLinesSecretWifeHumourProductsThirdsAccountsSellsPaintDetailsFinishedAcceptedSatisfiedIntimacyPlanesExposedFalsehoodPortraitsAssociatesBluffsBest Picture
Book:Three Novels: Tender is the Night; The Beautiful and Damned; Thi
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“To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)... The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn of reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action.”

MenChildrenFeelingsActionSpiritFatherJesusEmotionFailingEmotionalSonHolySpeechMovedBelovedSensitiveHoly SpiritRejectsSpiritual LifePortraitsScornStirringFickleUnreliableEmotional LifeAbbaAbba Father
Author:Brennan Manning
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“Each of us chooses the tone for telling his or her own story. I would like to choose the durable clarity of a platinum print, but nothing in my destiny possesses the luminosity. I live among diffuse shadings, veiled mysteries, uncertainties; the tone of telling my life is closer to that of a portrait in sepia.”

StoriesLife IsDestinyMysteryClarityUncertaintyTonePrintPortraitsMy DestinyPlatinum
Book:Conversations with Isabel Allende: Revised Edition
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“I was on a walking tour of Oxford colleges once with a group of bored and unimpressable tourists. They yawned at Balliol's quad, T.E. Lawrence's and Churchill's portraits, and the blackboard Einstein wrote his E=mc2 on. Then the tour guide said, 'And this is the Bridge of Sighs, where Lord Peter proposed (in Latin) to Harriet,' and everyone suddenly came to life and began snapping pictures. Such is the power of books.”

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Author:Connie Willis
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“You cheated!” He looked at her, wide-eyed with feigned outrage. “I beg your pardon. If you were a man, I would call you out for that accusation.” “And I assure you, my lord, that I would ride forth victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness.” “Are you quoting the Bible to me?” “Indeed,” she said primly, the portrait of piousness. “While gambling.” “What better location to attempt to reform one such as you?”

IfsMenSaidLordHumilityWideReformGamblingRighteousnessPortraitsLocationBehalfPardonOutrageCheatedAccusationQuotingYou Cheated
Author:Sarah MacLean
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“That wand’s more trouble than it’s worth,” said Harry. “And quite honestly,” he turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower, and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there, “I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime.”

ThinkingSaidEnoughMightLyingWaitingWonderFourTroubleBedLifetimeHonestlyTowersPortraitsSandwichesPostersHad EnoughWandsGryffindor
Author:J. K. Rowling
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“Justice based purely on laws is about as accurate as a portrait created out of large low-resolution color pixels. If you stand back far enough it looks good. Come any closer and the glaring approximations overtake all semblance of the original. Justice should be viewable under the microscope, not from a telescope. And for that it needs to be based not on law but on truth.”

IfsNeedsShouldLooksEnoughLawJusticeColorLowsOriginalsResolutionAccuratePortraitsTelescopesMicroscopesSemblanceApproximationPixels
Author:Vera Nazarian
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“Have you ever found your heart's desire and then lost it? I had seen myself, a portrait of myself as a reader. My childhood: days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew, forbidden books read secretively late at night. Teenage years reading -trying to read- books I'd heard were important, Naked Lunch, and The Fountainhead, Ulysses and Women in Love... It was as though I had dreamt the perfect lover, who vanished as I woke, leaving me pining and surly.”

TryingYearsHeartImportantBookHomeSchoolDesireNightReadingFoundLostPerfectHeardChildhoodReaderLoversLateSickLeavingNakedLunchPortraitsTeenageForbiddenLeaving MeNancyFountainheadTeenage YearsUlyssesPiningSurlyNancy DrewPerfect LoverHome Sick
Author:Audrey Niffenegger
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“every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.”

FeelingsArtistAccidentsPainterOccasionsCanvasPortraitsDorian GreyPortrait Of Dorian Gray
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts
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“Strider's bedroom "The only thing hanging on the wall that wasn't a weapon was the portrait just over the bed. No. Not true, he thought then. The portrait was a weapon, too. Of seduction. In it Strider was utterly naked and whisking through the cloads like an avenging angel. He was holding a teddy bear in one hand and a stream of pink ribbons in the other. Anya had given him the nearly life-size monstrasity as a joke. But the joke was on her. He loved the thing.”

HandsGivenWallBearsBedWeaponsJokesAngelSizeNakedStreamsBedroomPortraitsSeductionRibbonsTeddyHanging OnTeddy BearAvengingStriderLife Size
Author:Gena Showalter
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“Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?”

TryingBelieveAgeBeautifulOrderLostFiveOne ThingYouthPureThirdsBravePassionateNobleCardsFallenThirtyFourthConsumptionWornBulletsPortraitsAnguishOblivionWorn OutVodkaLost Ones
Author:Anton Chekhov
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“How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June… . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!”

IfsWorldWayGivingStillsSoulWholeEyeYoungGrowsParticularWhole WorldHorribleMy SoulFixedHis EyesGrayPortraitsJuneDorian GreyPortrait Of Dorian Gray
Author:Oscar Wilde
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“I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly!”

IfsWayGivingShouldDoeMomentsDiesLosesPaintJealousPortraitsMockI Am Jealous
Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray (English French Edition illustrated): Le Portrait de Dorian Gray (Anglais Français édition illustré)
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“Because every book of art, be it a poem or a cupola, is understandably a self-portrait of its author, we won't strain ourselves too hard trying to distinguish between the author's persona and the poem's lyrical hero. As a rule, such distinctions are quite meaningless, if only because a lyrical hero is invariably an author's self-projection.”

IfsTryingArtBookSelfHardHeroArt IsDistinctionMeaninglessPortraitsStrainProjectionPersonaLyricalSelf PortraitSelf Portrait Photography
Author:Joseph Brodsky
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