Composition Quotes - Page 3

• Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge.

  James Thurber

  Native American, Rewards, Comedy

  "A Thurber Garland". Book by James Thurber. Preface, 1955.

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• The only happy talkers are dandies who extract pleasure from the very perishability of their material and who would not be able to tolerate the isolation of all other forms of composition; for most good talkers, when they have run down, are miserable; they know that they have betrayed themselves, that they have taken material which should have a life of its own, to dispense it in noises upon the air.

  Cyril Connolly

  Running, Taken, Air

  Cyril Connolly (2008). “Enemies of Promise”, p.107, University of Chicago Press

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• You know, as you compose music, you're just off in your own world. You have no idea where reality is, so to have an idea of what people think is pretty hard.

  Roy Lichtenstein

  Reality, Thinking, Ideas

  "New Again: Roy Lichtenstein". Interview with David Bowie, www.interviewmagazine.com. September 20, 2012.

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• Anybody can have ideas-the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Plain Language, Ideas

  Mark Twain (1990). “Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 2: 1867-1868”, p.183, Univ of California Press

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• Far more thought and care go into the composition of any prominent ad in a newspaper or magazine than go into the writing of their features and editorials.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Writing, Magazines, Care

  Marshall McLuhan (1964). “Understanding media: the extensions of man”

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• Drawing and composition are the same thing.

  John French Sloan

  Drawing

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• In my photography, color and composition are inseparable. I see in color.

  William Albert Allard

  Photography, Color, Inseparable

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• Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Writing, Luck, Literature

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.24, Courier Corporation

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• With cropping, a new integrity appears and winning abstractions flutter up like butterflies. You can afford to be critical, discriminating, innocent, open-minded, charmed, beguiled or bamboozled.

  Robert Genn

  Integrity, Butterfly, Winning

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• At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Time, Pain, Reading

  "The Barretts at Hope End: the early diary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning".

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• The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

  Joseph Addison

  Quality, Literature, Gains

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• There must be a judicious arrangement of all the parts. Considered conversely, the artist's task is to fill his panel with a design that conforms to its shape and is beautiful in itself.

  Walter J. Phillips

  Beautiful, Artist, Design

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• Gradually compositions make an appearance again. Political - satirical - conceits expressed in one figure or a few.

  Paul Klee

  Political, Appearance, Figures

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• I am interposing overlaid planes a short way off... To make it understood that things are in front of each other instead of being scattered in space.

  Georges Braque

  Space, Way, Planes

  "Entretien avec Jauqes Lassaigne". Book by Georges Braque, 1961.

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• Everybody has a right to like or dislike anything or anyone. From a flower to a flavor to a book or a composition but it is very sad that in our country we actually fight over such things in an unseemly manner.

  Ravi Shankar

  Country, Flower, Book

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• A precision of composition and figuration is what I'm working toward. I've always felt viewers should have an experience without having to ask what the hell is was about.

  Eric Fischl

  Should Have, Hell, Precision

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• I have learned from nature that all is equal... all is equal and in balance. I see everything as fitting together.

  Joseph Raffael

  Balance, Together, Fitting

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• Sometimes, you start with the drawing and then the gag comes to you in the middle of it. That is when you start working on the solution of the gag, which is composition, placing, equilibrium, and character design.

  Sergio Aragones

  Character, Drawing, Design

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• My vocation is more in composition really than anything else - building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.

  Jimmy Page

  Army, Guitar, Building Up

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• To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Achievement, Squandering

  Mark Twain (1990). “Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 2: 1867-1868”, p.182, Univ of California Press

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• And harmony means that the relationship between all the elements used in a composition is balanced, is good.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Relationship, Mean, Elements

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• If measure and symmetry are absent from any composition in any degree, ruin awaits both the ingredients and the composition... Measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue the world over.

  Socrates

  Degrees, World, Ruins

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• I never retouch a sketch: I take a canvas the same size, as I may change the composition somewhat. But I always strive to give the same feeling, while carrying it on further.

  Henri Matisse

  Giving, Feelings, May

  Henri Matisse, Jack D. Flam (1995). “Matisse on Art”, p.67, Univ of California Press

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• Composition can't really be taught, it is a lifelong learning.

  Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

  Taught, Lifelong Learning, Lifelong

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• I cannot copy nature in a servile way; I am forced to interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture. From the relationship I have found in all the tones there must result a living harmony of colors, a harmony analogous to that of a musical composition.

  Henri Matisse

  Color, Musical, Way

  Henri Matisse, Jack D. Flam (1973). “Matisse on art”

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