Frida Kahlo Quotes: 51 Quotes revealing the indomitable spirit of this iconic artist

Frida Kahlo: 51 quotes 87 likes

Famous Frida Kahlo Quotes

“I am that clumsy human, always loving, loving, loving. And loving. And never leaving.”

Frida Kahlo

“Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic.”

Frida Kahlo

Variant: Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are a bourbon biscuit.

“Wordless,
Infinite —
You.
You intensify
everything.
You are
fire
burning
all that
is left
of my
heart.”

Frida Kahlo

“I love you more than my own skin and even though you don’t love me the same way, you love me anyways, don’t you? And if you don’t, I’ll always have the hope that you do, and i’m satisfied with that. Love me a little. I adore you.”

Frida Kahlo

“I paint flowers so they will not die.”

Frida Kahlo

“I think that little by little I'll be able to solve my problems and survive.”

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo Quotes about painting

“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”

Frida Kahlo

Quoted in Time Magazine, "Mexican Autobiography" (27 April 1953)
1946 - 1953
Variant: I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.

“I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.”

Frida Kahlo

“I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”

Frida Kahlo

Quoted from: Antonio Rodríguez, "Una pintora extraordinaria," Así (17 March 1945)
1925 - 1945
Variant: I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

“My painting carries with it the message of pain.”

Frida Kahlo

“I first met Diego [who became later her husband] while he was painting the amphitheater [at the Escuela National Preparatoria, where Rivera was painting the mural 'La Créación', 1922 -1923] and I would really cherish going to see him paint. Orozco [famous Mexican painter] was also painting [murals] in the Prepa, and I remember one time a group of kids wanted to scratch the paintings of Diego and Orozco... Every day we went for ice cream at a stand opposite the law school... Sometimes Diego himself would pass by, and we would tease him. One day they asked me who I wanted to marry, and I said I would not marry, but I did want to have a child by Diego Rivera.”

Frida Kahlo

27 October 1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My life', p. 71

“I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”

Frida Kahlo

Quoted in Time Magazine, "Mexican Autobiography" (27 April 1953)
1946 - 1953

Frida Kahlo: Trending quotes

“Feet, what do I need them for
If I have wings to fly.”

Frida Kahlo

Pies, para qué los quiero
Si tengo alas para volar.
Diary illustration, dated 1953, preceding a foot amputation in August of that year; reproduced on page 415 of Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera (1983)
1946 - 1953

Flying

“Only one mountain can know the core of another mountain.”

Frida Kahlo

Source: The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait

Mountain

“I’m more and more convinced it’s only through communism that we can become human.”

Frida Kahlo

Quote of Frida Kahlo, in her letter from US, during the 1930s, from https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/09/kah2-s11.html
1925 - 1945

Communication

Frida Kahlo Quotes

“People in general are scared to death of the war and all the exhibition have been a failure, because the rich - don't want to buy anything”

Frida Kahlo

Death , War , People , Failure

“What I wanted to express very clearly and intensely was that the reason these people had to invent or imagine heroes and gods is pure fear. Fear of life and fear of death.”

Frida Kahlo

Life , Death , God , People

“I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return.”

Frida Kahlo

Last words in her diary (July 1954)
1946 - 1953

Hope

“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.”

Frida Kahlo

Change

“I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.”

Frida Kahlo

Night

“I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.”

Frida Kahlo

Quote in a letter to Ella Wolfe, "Wednesday 13," 1938, as cited in Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera (1983) ISBN 0-06-091127-1 , p. 197. In a footnote (p.467), Herrera writes that Kahlo had heard this joke from her friend, the poet José Frías.
1925 - 1945
Variant: I tried to drown my sorrows but the bastards learned how to swim.

Learning

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”

Frida Kahlo

Motivational , Success , Deep , Inspirational

“Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.”

Frida Kahlo

Laughter , Light

“I want to be inside your darkest everything”

Frida Kahlo

Source: The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait

“The most important thing for everyone in Gringolandia is to have ambition and become 'somebody,' and frankly, I don't have the least ambition to become anybody.”

Frida Kahlo

“I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.”

Frida Kahlo

Variant: I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows. But now the damned things have learned to swim, and now decency and good behavior weary me.

Feeling , Learning

“You deserve the best, the very best, because you are one of the few people in this lousy world who are honest to themselves, and that is the only thing that really counts.”

Frida Kahlo

People , World

“My Diego: Mirror of the night Your eyes green swords inside my flesh. waves between our hands. All of you in a space full of sounds — in the shade and in the light. You were called AUXOCHROME the one who captures color. I CHROMOPHORE — the one who gives color. You are all the combinations of numbers. life. My wish is to understand lines form shades movement. You fulfill and I receive. Your word travels the entirety of space and reaches my cells which are my stars then goes to yours which are my light.”

Frida Kahlo

Life , Color , Travel , Star

“I was really ugly [circa 8 a 10 years old] and had an admiration complex for Christi [her beautiful sister]. They sent us tot the ous of senora Maria a Campos for instruction... I asked about the mysteries of the Bible, and I think I behaved badly so they sent me to a retreat. It was the usual thing: "to dedicate oneself mor to God".... it was a house where one spent about fifteen days... I asked the priest so many questions about how Christ was born, and was the virgin really a virgin, that they threw me out.”

Frida Kahlo

9 September 1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My life', p. 64

God , Beauty , Question , Thinking

“I have suffered two grave accidents in my life, one in which a streetcar knocked me down… The other accident is Diego.”

Frida Kahlo

Quote in Imagen de Frida Kahlo by Gisèle Freund in Novedades (Mexico City) (10 June 1951)
1946 - 1953

Life , Suffering

“pain, pleasure and death are no more than a process for existence. The revolutionary struggle in this process is a doorway open to intelligence”

Frida Kahlo

Source: The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait

Death , Pain , Pleasure , Intelligence

“There is nothing more precious than laughter”

Frida Kahlo

Source: The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait

Laughter

“I love you more than my own skin.”

Frida Kahlo

Love

“No moon, sun, diamond, hands —
fingertip, dot, ray, gauze, sea.
pine green, pink glass, eye,
mine, eraser, mud, mother, I am coming.”

Frida Kahlo

Source: The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait

Sun , Sea

“I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to better.”

Frida Kahlo

“It was worthwhile to come here only to see why Europe is rottening, why all this people - good for nothing - are the cause of all the Hitlers and Mussolinis.”

Frida Kahlo

Source: Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo

People

“A little while ago, not much more than a few days ago, I was a child who went about in a world of colors, of hard and tangible forms. Everything was mysterious and something was hidden, guessing what it was was a game for me. If you knew how terrible it is to know suddenly, as if a bolt of lightning elucidated the earth. Now I live in a painful planet, transparent as ice; but it is as if I had learned everything at once in seconds.”

Frida Kahlo

Quote of Frida Kahlo, in her letter to Alejandro Gómez Arias, 29 September 1926
1925 - 1945

Pain , World , Color , Game

“.. when I had my imaginary friend I would look out of the small glass panes of the window and fill them with steam. Then, I would draw a little window and go out through it. Opposite our house, there was a milk store that was named Pinzon, and I would travel from the little window through the "o" in Pinzon, and from there into the center of the earth, where I had my friend, and we would dance and play... I do not remember my friend's house, and she had no name. She was like me in age. She had no face. The truth is, I do not remember if she had a face or not, and she was very lively. I could not describe her.”

Frida Kahlo

9 September 1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My life', pp. 66-67

Truth , Age , Travel , Dance

“Until always and forever. Now in 1944. After all the hours lived through. The vectors continue in their original direction. Nothing stops them. With no more knowledge than live emotion. With no other wish than to go on until they meet. Slowly. With great unease, but with the certainty that all is guided by the "golden section". There is cellular arrangement. There is movement. There is light. All centers are the same. Folly doesn’t exist. We are the same as we were and as we will be. Not counting on idiotic destiny.”

Frida Kahlo

Quote of Frida Kahlo, from her letter to Diego Rivera (1944), as cited in The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait; ed. Carlos Fuentes & C. Fuentes; Abrams, Harry N. Inc. 2005
1925 - 1945

Knowledge , Light

“One Sunday, Diego came to the house to see my paintings and critiqued all of them in a very clear manner, and he told me all the possibilities he saw in them. Then I painted two or three things, which are around the house, that to me seem very influenced by him [circa 1928]. They are portraits of thirteen- or fourteen-year-old kids... In 1929, I joined the Communist Party, I got married to Diego, and I had my first abortion. In that year I painted a portrait of Cristina Moya.... and other drawings that Morillo Safa [her main patron] owns. The unfinished [self-]portrait of my first abortion was my first Surrealist painting ['Frida and the Caesarean', she painted in 1929] but not completely. I have it [at home].”

Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', p. 74

Home , Drawing , Painting , Housing

“I was fascinated by Papa's studio [he was photographer]. I would help him wash, crop and press photos and afterwards sell them, when we were poor. When I was in Prepa, [following college] they would send me to help my father when he had epileptic attacks. After school I would go to his office, which was downtown, and accompany him everywhere. I would also do my homework there, and he would help me. I remember the fear that Papa's epileptic attacks make me feel. Christina and I would hide under the bed.”

Frida Kahlo

9 September 1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My life', p. 63

Fear , School , Feeling , Photo

“Papa painted small landscapes by the river in Coyoacán, and copied sentimental paintings in watercolour and oil. Afterwards, he gave me a little box of paints that belonged to him. Ángel Salas gave me a small book that told me how to prepare the canvases, and I made them smooth, smooth. The courtship with Gómez Arias lasted from 1922 until 1925, when the bus crushed us both. Gómez Arias brought me books on painting and painters from Europe. These were the first books on art that fell into my hands.”

Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', p. 73

Books , Art , Painting , Box

“It's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.”

Frida Kahlo

This is usually attributed to the Diary of Frida Kahlo, which does not contain the quotation. As explained on the Quote Investigator website http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/01/28/flawed/, a postcard containing the quotation and a portion of a photo of Frida Kahlo was sent anonymously in 2008 to the PostSecret website, which posted a photo of the postcard, but the probable author was Becky Martin (Rebecca Katherine Martin). The actual quotation is: I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there you read this and know that yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.
Misattributed

“I remember the first time I was sick. I had gone to play with a boy, Luis Léon, and on the patio he threw a wooden log at my foot, and this was the pretext they used at home when my leg began to grow thin. I remember they said that it was a white tumor or paralysis. I missed a lot of school [Frida spent nine months in bed, and and at seven she wore (polio) booties]. I do not remember a lot, but I continued jumping, only not with the right leg anymore. I developed a horrible complex, and I hide my leg. I wore thick wool socks onto the knee, with bandages underneath. This happened when I was seven years old, and my papa and my mama begun to spoil me a lot and to love me more. The foot leaned to the side, and I limped a little. This was during the period when I had my imaginary friend.”

Frida Kahlo

9 September 1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My life', p. 65

Love , School , Home , Boy

“His [Diego Rivera's] supposed mythomania is in direct relation to his tremendous imagination. That is to say, he is as much of a liar as the poets or as the children who have not yet been turned into idiots by school or mothers. I have heard him tell all kinds of lies: from the most innocent, to the most complicated stories about people whom his imagination combined in a fantastic situation or actions, always with a great sense of humor and a marvelous critical sense; but I have never heard him say a single stupid or banal lie. Lying, or playing at lying, he unmasks many people, he learns the interior mechanism of others, who are much more ingenuously liars than he, and the most curious thing about the supposed lies of Diego, is that in the long and short of it, those who are involved in the imaginary combination become angry, not because of the lie, but because of the truth contained in the lie, that always comes to the surface.”

Frida Kahlo

Frida's quote On Diego Rivera, in 'Portrait of Diego' [Retrato de Diego] (22 January 1949), first published in Hoy (Mexico City) and posthumously (17 July 1955) in Novedades (Mexico City): "México en la Cultura"
1946 - 1953

Children , People , Truth , Lie

“We [Frida and Diego] moved from the house on Reforma [street] to Coyoacán, and that had an enormous influence on me. How we painted the house and the Mexican furniture, all that influenced my painting a lot. While still on Reforma, I painted a self-portrait [Self-portrait 'Time Flies', 1929] that is owned by Morillo Safa. Once in Coyoacán I began to make paintings with backgrounds and Mexican things in them. I painted the portraits of Hale's sister.... and the one of Diego, which I did not finish [this painting is lost and was never documented before]. Those three paintings, who knows where they are. Mirillo Safa has the third self-portrait [her Self-portrait of 1930], showing me bald and sitting in a cane chair.”

Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', p. 75

Sister , Time , Painting , Housing

“I'll be in Detroit two more weeks. I would like to tell you every thing that happened to me since the last time we saw each other, but most of them are sad and you mustn't know sad things now. After all I shouldn't complain because I have been happy in many ways though. Diego is good to me, and you can't imagine how happy he has been working on the frescoes here. I have been painting a little too and that helped. I thought of you a lot and never forget your wonderful hands and the color of your eyes. I will see you soon. I am sure that in New York I will be much happier. If you still in the hospital when I come back I will bring you flowers.”

Frida Kahlo

Quote of Kahlo, in her letter to Georgia O'Keeffe, 1 March 1933, from http://www.patronofthearts.com/2015/07/frida-kahlos-letter-to-georgia-okeefe/
1925 - 1945

Sadness , Color , Way , Imagination

“José Clemente Orozco [became later a famous Mexican painter as well] and I would travel on the same trolley from Coyoacán to Mexico City, and I would carry his papers. We became pals, and I invited him to the house. I had painted four or five things when he visited, and he gave me a hug and said I had a lot of talent, and he chatted on about the horrors of Diego [Rivera]. There was beginning to be talk about Diego; that he had returned from Russia and was giving talks on on Russian theater and art. I would go to hear him. Afterwards, he began to paint at the Prepa. [Escuela Prepatoria] and later at the Secretaríade Educación. I was studying at the Prepa, but the [bus] accident [in 1925] messed me up.”

Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', pp. 73-74

Art , Travel , Study , Painting

“I returned to school [after the bus accident], but I felt very sore and had little strength. I took my paintings to Diego [Rivera], and he liked them a lot, most of all the self-portrait. But of the rest he told me that I was influenced by Doctor Atl [a Mexican painter and revolutionary] and by Montenegro, and that I should try to paint whatever I wanted without being influenced by anyone else. That impressed me a lot, and I began to paint that I believed in. Then the friendship and almost courtship with Diego began. I would go to see him paint in the afternoon, and afterwards he would take me home by bus or in a Fordcito – a little Ford that he had – and he would kiss me.”

Frida Kahlo

1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My Painting', p. 74

Friendship , School , Home , Kiss

“I am a poor little deer.”

Frida Kahlo

written line on a photograph she gave Diego. (1946)
In 1946 Frida painted 'The Little Deer', her self-portrait as a wounded stag; her health took an irreversible turn for the worse, then.
1946 - 1953

“Since Trotsky came to Mexico I have understood his error. I was never a Trotskyist.”

Frida Kahlo

Diary illustration, dated 4 November 1952 https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-anVqMh38CqE/XIGRL_7Xh5I/AAAAAAAABZI/RBlMfOEWc84ndfYcz04bpep1CIQUQD9fQCEwYBhgL/s1600/diario%2Bkahlo1.png https://books.google.it/books?id=D7NXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT17&lpg=PT17&dq=yo+jamas+fui+trotskista&source=bl&ots=fAdUwosNze&sig=ACfU3U3sERQThGSf1iR0NiwhxZuYJ78Jpg&hl=it&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwig9_znhvPgAhVLzYUKHexiBD4Q6AEwCXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=yo%20jamas%20fui%20trotskista&f=false
1946 - 1953

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