
“Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.”
Address to the Harvard Alumni Association to the Class of '61, in Speeches (1913), p. 96.
1910s
“Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.”
Address to the Harvard Alumni Association to the Class of '61, in Speeches (1913), p. 96.
1910s
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
Quote (Bern, April 1902), as cited in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 442
1895 - 1902
Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 43, note 36 : quote on his start with photography
quote of 1948
1942 - 1948
Source: Movements in art since 1945, Edward Lucie-Smith, Thames and Hudson 1975, p 32
“We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.”
Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman
“…faith in God creates the possibility that even if our situations do not change, life can be good.”
Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)
“I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live.”
February 1954 The Diary of Anaïs Nin Vol. 5 (1947-1955), as quoted in Woman as Writer (1978) by Jeannette L. Webber and Joan Grumman, p. 38
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Context: Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.