Hans Hofmann Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I might see something on TV and get inspired to write about it. I can't sit down and plan to write. It has to come to me in my head like someone telling me the words.
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The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.
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I always say that I'm an artist who works with pictures and words, so I think that the different aspects of my activity, whether it's writing criticism, or doing visual work that incorporates writing, or teaching, or curating, is all of a single cloth, and I don't make any separation in terms of those practices.
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Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?
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There is nothing cooler than to have them singing your words back to you. The last show I did, I was kind of nervous about putting the mic out there, because you're not sure how it's going to go. But I did, and they sang the whole chorus. I thought, 'Holy crap! That is the coolest feeling.' It's the biggest rush ever.
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Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.
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The less lines, the better. I am the silent film actor, but not in a slapstick sort of way. Film is an image-based medium, so whatever you can say without the words is far more provocative and punctuating. If the lines are not funny or if they don't advance the story, sometimes it's hard. I hate talk in movies.
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What you compose with is neither here nor there, you compose with words, or you compose with stone plants and trees, or you compose with events; the Sheriff's officer, or whatever.
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The 'soul' is one of the words you can use to talk about your innermost being, the essence of who you are.
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If you're quiet, and you don't speak out, you're never going to get anything accomplished.
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Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words.
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From the time I was ten, I thought of myself as 'good with words,' thanks to a perceptive and supportive fifth grade teacher.
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If the great Government of the United States were a private corporation no bank would take its name on a piece of paper, because it has cynically repudiated the words engraved upon its bonds.
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Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.
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I am not playing for any lobby. I am playing for national lobby. I will ignore lobby. Anybody has useful suggestion, they can give it to me. The history will speak about it.
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Socrates gave a lifetime to the outpouring of his substance in the shape of the greatest benefits bestowed on all who cared to receive them. In other words, he made those who lived in his society better men and sent them on their way rejoicing.
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We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and run by wonks. In other words, like a home appliance, not like the human body.
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To sing is to bring to life; impossible if the words are mediocre, however good the music.
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There are many reasons our prayers may lack power. Sometimes they become routine. Our prayers become hollow when we say similar words in similar ways over and over so often that the words become more of a recitation than a communication.
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My whole musical life has been an educational process, and I'm just furthering my education and filling in the blanks. There's stuff that I want to know that I don't know.
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It was an axiom of 'containment' that no part of the known world could be considered neutral. 'Neutralism' was among the Cold Warriors' gravest curse words, applied with caustic hostility to India and even France. Those who were not with were against, subjected to intense economic and ideological - and sometimes military - pressure to fall into line.
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There is an energy within... pure strength... the energy of the person which is put in different forms, in different shapes... once we discover that energy I think that such a thing as dance becomes such a delight because you're moving on a stream that is you but it is even over and beyond you...
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What a folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal.
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Painters must speak through paint, not through words.
