The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself.

The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself.

I have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature.

If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him.

Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back, from without to within.

Every true work of art must express a distinct feeling.

Ultimately, it's an illusion that you can understand yourself.

Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

God's mercy is fresh and new every morning.

I like being like a chameleon who transforms himself with each role.

All I really wanted to do was cuddle back under the blankets maybe with a certain stuffed toy penguin I knew. Yeah hiding sounded good.

A whole generation of young whites have involved themselves with traditional Negro music.

During the 19th-century struggle for women's rights in America, many saw a competition between rights for black people and those for women.

If there's one thing that 'No Child Left Behind' has proven, it's that more academics don't make for smarter children - or even higher test scores. And yet we somehow refuse to accept this reality.

The nicest thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.

When God created the world, he didn't draw a line between Canada and America.

Sometimes in the midst of all your boy drama you just need a cupcake.

The ward designs were co-created by myself and Lauren K. Cannon. She read how they were described in 'The Warded Man,' and we had long discussions about what sources to draw from for the symbols, drawing inspiration from Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and Sanskrit.

When I preaches, I has just one text to preach from, an' I always preaches from this one. My text is, 'When I found Jesus.'

I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.

On every job you do, you've got to raise your game. My ambition is to just get better and better every job you do - you should never stop trying to get better. You have to teach yourself new things - I don't think you necessarily learn them from other people because you have your own style of doing things, but hopefully you get better.

Technically, I'm a New Yorker.

I kind of view everybody like a rainbow. Everybody on the planet has all the colors of the rainbow inside.

The Ramones went through a couple different line-up changes, and Johnny and Joey held through the whole thing. So right now I'm the only one hanging in there.

Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels more like watching people reveal themselves, ever more deeply, more intimately.

You cannot hold your head high with your hand out.

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

You know what my greatest personal stumbling block is? My shyness.