“It is instinctive to search for something. Abstract art is inherently about the search - and about not finding anything. My gray monochromes have the same illusionistic implications as my landscapes. I want them to be seen as narratives - even if they are narratives of nothingness. Nothing is something. You might say they are like photographs of nothing.”

— Gerhard Richter

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

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Gerhard Richter 96

German visual artist, born 1932 1932

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“This one is too elegant, too shiny, like jewelry. It seeks applause. This is clear to me, but difficult to explain, which is what makes abstraction so fascinating. In one sense, abstract art is absolutely nothing, stupid. In 100 years, maybe people will just think it's garbage. But somehow we see something in it; we have a sense of quality. [searching for an illustration of his point, Richter leafs through a catalog to find some of his 'gray monochromes']. I was doing these [monochromes] when I was getting divorced. When you feel totally empty, you do this - but then I saw that one picture was actually better than another. Both were miserable, but the difference was interesting. I loved this: that there must be something, some higher faculty, some progressive sensibility that we find in abstraction. But it is impossible to describe.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

“When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you to trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing — then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

41e–42a
Plato, Apology

“The truth about life was that nothing ever ended until you died, and even then you just left a whole bunch of unresolved narratives behind you.”

Nick Hornby book Juliet, Naked

Source: Juliet, Naked

“Several times I asked myself, "Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is common to everyone?" And I searched for an answer to my questions in every area of knowledge acquired by man. For a long time I carried on my painstaking search; I did not search casually, out of mere curiosity, but painfully, persistently, day and night, like a dying man seeking salvation. I found nothing.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Pt. I, ch. 5
Confession (1882)

“I have been a damn fool all my life, searching for something which does not exist. My search is at an end.”

U.G. Krishnamurti book Mind is a Myth

Quoted in Introduction by Terry Newland
Mind is a Myth (1987)
Context: I have assumed that the goal, enlightenment, exists. I have had to search and it is the search itself which has been choking me and keeping me out of my natural state. There is no such thing as spiritual or psychological enlightenment because there is no such thing as spirit or psyche. I have been a damn fool all my life, searching for something which does not exist. My search is at an end.

“When I have to think about it, I know the picture is wrong. And sizing is a form of thinking and coloring is too. My instinct about painting says, 'If you don’t think about it, it's right'. As soon as you have to decide and choose, it's wrong. And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets. Some people, they paint abstract, so they sit there thinking about it because their thinking makes them feel they're doing something. But my thinking never makes me feel I'm doing anything.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 149

“The odd thing about this form of communication is you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many… somethings. So, thanks.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

“Can you say something about nothing?”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

“All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.
And having seen what I’ve seen — and given the chance — I feel it is my responsibility to say something.”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

The "Burke quote" she uses here is a common but disputed attribution.
UN Speech on the HeForShe campaign (2014)
Context: You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing speaking at the UN. And it’s a really good question. I've been asking myself the same thing. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.
And having seen what I’ve seen — and given the chance — I feel it is my responsibility to say something. Statesman Edmund Burke said: “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.”
In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt I’ve told myself firmly — if not me, who, if not now, when. If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope that those words might be helpful.

“Contrary to what some might believe, writing does not generate enjoyment or pleasure in itself, quite the opposite; And yet, I feel the need to write fiction as if I have a feeling that I will find something in the middle of my narrative journey, no matter how painful it may be.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Klairet Levy, R. Interview to José Baroja. http://letras.mysite.com/jbar050923.html

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