There is an appalling amount of mechanical work in the artist's life ... Talent is mysterious, but the qualities that guard, foster, and direct it are not unlike those of a good quartermaster. Anne Truitt More Quotes by Anne Truitt More Quotes From Anne Truitt Love ... is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery. Anne Truitt discovery love relationship The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one's own intimate sensitivity. Anne Truitt nerves discipline artist Our society is monstrously disjunctive, at once so efficient in war and so inefficient in caring for the welfare of its members. It is frightening to see people rooting in garbage pails on streets, living in cardboard crates under bridges, while their government wages war. Even when there is an emergency in a household, decent parents do not forget to feed the children. Anne Truitt caring war children Art comes into the highest part of the mind, that with which we can know the presence of God. Anne Truitt presence-of-god mind art In the range of my character at any given moment, I have acted in the only way it seemed to me I could have acted. This in no way means that I have done what was right; only what was possible for me. Sometimes I have done what I knew was wrong, and have rationalized. But rationalization is a form of desperation. It takes kindness to forgive oneself for one's life. Anne Truitt forgiveness kindness mean No one questions the fact that verbal language has to be learned, but the commonplaceness of visual experience betrays art; people tend to assume that, because they can see, they can see art. Anne Truitt facts people art I never decided at all to be an artist; being an artist seems to have happened to me. Anne Truitt happened artist seems I've struggled all my life to get maximum meaning in the simplest possible form. Anne Truitt maximum simplest form Artists have no choice but to express their lives. Anne Truitt choices artist The difference between men and women is inalienable. It is not a political fact, subject to cultural definition and redefinition, but a physical verity. We do truthfully experience our lives differently because our bodies are different. It is in what we do with our experience that we are the same. We feel, absorb and examine with the same intensity, and intense experience honestly examined informs the art of both sexes equally. ... The power of imagination illuminates all human lives in common. Anne Truitt men sex art the knowledge of personal failure ... is the invaluable predicate of all honest compassion. Anne Truitt honest failure compassion I have no home but me. Anne Truitt self home I have slowly come to realize that a family is composed of people who are teaching one another. Anne Truitt family teaching people Their [artists'] essential effort is to catapult themselves wholly, without holding back one bit, into a course of action without having any idea where they will end up. They are like riders who gallop into the night, eagerly leaning on their horse's neck, peering into a blinding rain. And they have to do it over and over again. Anne Truitt horse creativity rain There's a small still center into which conception can arrive. And when it arrives, you make it welcome with your experience. Anne Truitt welcome experience stills I worked in between carpools and buying food and cooking and whatever else I had to do. I lived an outside life, but really I was living an inside life. Anne Truitt buying cooking I come to the point of using steel, and simply cannot. It's like the marriage proposal of a perfectly eligible man who just isn't loveable. It is wood I love. Anne Truitt sculpture steel men I had forgotten what sleep is like - a kingdom all its own. Anne Truitt kingdoms forgotten sleep January is my favorite month, when the light is plainest, least colored. And I like the feeling of beginnings. Anne Truitt months light feelings When I speak now, my experience in art wells up so articulately that I am surprised even while I am talking. I move around a podium as easily as if it were my living room and although I am keyed up I am not anxious. I feel as if I were doing what I should be doing - the feeling I have when intent in my studio. Anne Truitt talking art moving
