“If you were the wall, what would you rather be? Dreary and dull, or alive with paint?"
"Walls can't think!"
"That doesn't stop them from caring.”

—  Brandon Sanderson, book The Emperor's Soul

Source: The Emperor's Soul

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If you were the wall, what would you rather be? Dreary and dull, or alive with paint?" "Walls can't think!" "That doesn…" by Brandon Sanderson?
Brandon Sanderson photo
Brandon Sanderson313
American fantasy writer 1975

Related quotes

“It takes time, see. You finish painting the painting and then you turn it to the wall. I mean, you say, does it have it or doesn't it have it? If it doesn't have it, you throw it away, but if you think it has it, you turn it to the wall. And then when you have made some more work, then you turn them all over. And you, again, try to see exactly what it does mean and just exactly how effectively you have rendered this meaning.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

1974
1970's, interview, K. Horsfield & L. Blumenthal

“My idea of painting was that those yellow squares, being put on the wall as delineating a virtual square or rectangle, were involving the wall itself within the piece and, in this sense, compared to what is usually a work of art, a painting, this piece was somehow reversing the usual terms of the esthetic proposition. Usually, you see the painting and you ignore the wall. Here you had the wall coming through the painting — and the painting itself, the painted pieces, become a standpoint to make the wall appear.”

Robert Barry (1936) American artist

Robert Barry (1980) in: Alexander Alberro (2003). Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity. Alberro noted: "Barry has since discussed the way in which this painting accented the structural support..."

David Belle photo

“If you are in front of a wall that you cannot get past, would you just keep banging your head into the wall?... No, you would find a new wall.”

David Belle (1973) French actor

http://parkour.net/modules/articles/item.php?itemid=16

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“Shall I show you the door… or would you rather go out through the wall?" - Maris”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Cloak & Silence

Octavia E. Butler photo

“I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining.”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

Jackson Pollock photo

“Well, painting today certainly seems very vibrant, very alive, very exiting. Five or six of my contemporaries around New York are doing very vital work, and the direction that painting seems to be taken here – is – away from the easel – into some sort, some kind of wall, wall painting…”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 144

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero photo

“There isn't any wall, however high, however wide or however big, whatever it is made from, that can bar you from achieving a better life. There isn't any wall or pit that is in front of you to stop you from achieving a future of wellbeing.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

Dinner speech at which Zapatero was the guest of honour, hosted by Felipe Calderón in the National Palace, Mexico City. <br class="br">As President, 2007 <br class="br">Source: Transcripción oficial en la web de la Presidencia de México http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/prensa/discursos/?contenido=31030

Ol' Dirty Bastard photo

“If a brick don't sit on walls no more, what would you aks it?”

Ol' Dirty Bastard (1968–2004) American rapper

Variant: If a dick don't get hard off of cocaine, what would you aks it?

Holly Black photo

“Once someone's hurt you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you from wanting them.”

Holly Black book White Cat

Source: White Cat

Hunter S. Thompson photo

“I'll stop trying to convince myself that I can't fail; how dull the whole thing would be if that were true.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Letter to Larry Callen (30 October 1957), p. 71
1990s, The Proud Highway : The Fear and Loathing Letters Volume I (1997)
Context: They say that "he who flies highest, falls farthest" — and who am I to argue? But we can't forget that "he who doesn't flap his wings, never flies at all". And with that, I'll stop trying to convince myself that I can't fail; how dull the whole thing would be if that were true.

Related topics