My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.

Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure.

An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.

I don't paint to live, I live to paint.

Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns.

I make pictures and someone comes in and calls it art.

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.

My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.

The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.

Even abstract shapes must have a likeness.

You have to keep on the very edge of something all the time or the picture dies.

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.

I have always used the world of make-believe with a certain desperation.

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.

Men of my age live in a state of continual desperation.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

Lottery tickets are a surtax on desperation.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

People need motivation to do anything. I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation.

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.

The abjection of our political situation is the only true challenge today. Only facing up to this situation in all its desperation can help us get out of it.

The tragedy of it is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and we're passing one another without a look of recognition.

If I were a Roman Catholic, I should turn a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory.

I sort of got into Westerns... It was a sort of desperation move, really. I had several pictures that didn't go very well, and I just realised that I would have to try something else.

Killing yourself is a major commitment, it takes a kind of courage. Most people just lead lives of cowardly desperation. It's kinda half suicide where you just dull yourself with substances.

Niger is not an isolated island of desperation. It lies within a sea of problems across Africa - particularly the 'forgotten emergencies' in poor countries or regions with little strategic or material appeal.

My hunger and desperation, being an actor, an out of work actor - my memory of that is as fresh as an open wound.

We all need money, but there are degrees of desperation.

I do believe that most men live lives of quiet desperation. For despair, optimism is the only practical solution. Hope is practical. Because eliminate that and it's pretty scary. Hope at least gives you the option of living.

Desperation is like stealing from the Mafia: you stand a good chance of attracting the wrong attention.

In life you need either inspiration or desperation.

I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting.

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting.

If we were really tough on crime, we'd try to save our children from the desperation and deprivation that leave them primed for a life of crime.

Wheels of fire, cosmic, rich, full-bodied honest victories over desperation.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

I am one of those people who thrive on deadlines, nothing brings on inspiration more readily than desperation.

You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation.

The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life, my relationship with God, and where I'm from. Well, I can't write a song on purpose, my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.

Now people want what the movie was about, which is violent comedy. And that's really what The Aristocrats is based on - what will a family do out of desperation.

Well it's a drastic procedure by your standards and mine, but for the people who are living in desperation perhaps the best way to understand it is that it seems no more drastic to them than circumcision.

Desperation is the perfume of the young actor. It's so satisfying to have gotten rid of it. If you keep smelling it, it can drive you crazy. In this business a lot of people go nuts, go eccentric, even end up dead from it. Not my plan.

Well, yeah, but I probably wasn't as open about my desperation.

Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.

My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.

I like movies about longing and desperation, and dark and light things, stories about people struggling to raise children, and to have relationships and be intimate with each other.

Today, for a Jew who writes in the German language, it is totally impossible to make a living. In no group do I see as much misery, disappointment, desperation and hopelessness as in Jewish writers who write in German.

So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book - driven by some very real feelings of desperation - and it worked.