Georgia O'Keeffe Quotes

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Art Bones Country Criticism Critics Desire Earth

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Inspiring, Art, Flower

Dennis Abrams, Georgia O'Keeffe (2009). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, p.23, Infobase Publishing

148 Copy quote
Filling a space in a beautiful way - that is what art means to me.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Beautiful, Art, Mean

Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.90, UPNE

130 Copy quote
Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Life, Beautiful, Art

Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.256, UPNE

177 Copy quote
I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Inspirational, Life, Courage

Dennis Abrams, Georgia O'Keeffe (2009). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, p.56, Infobase Publishing

174 Copy quote
I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary--you're happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Thinking, Things In Life, People

146 Copy quote
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Inspirational, Nature, Flower

Quoted in N.Y. Post, 16 May 1946

70 Copy quote
The men liked to put me down as the best woman painter. I think I'm one of the best painters.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Funny, Women, Thinking

Quoted in WChadwick Women, Art and Society (1990).

175 Copy quote
Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Inspirational, Friendship, Time

Quoted in Goodrich and Bry GeorgiaO'Keeffe (1970).

100 Copy quote
If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Nature, Flower, Garden

Quoted in N.Y. Post, 16 May 1946

113 Copy quote
I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Art, Flower, Paint

125 Copy quote
Someone else's vision will never be as good as your own vision of your self. Live and die with it 'cause in the end it's all you have. Lose it and you lose yourself and everything else. I should have listened to myself.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Self, Should Have, Vision

109 Copy quote
Imagination makes you see all sorts of things.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Imagination

50 Copy quote
I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Criticism, Flattery, Drains

Dennis Abrams, Georgia O'Keeffe (2009). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, p.70, Infobase Publishing

33 Copy quote
Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Things In Life, Important, Life Happiness

11 Copy quote
Fill a space in a beautiful way.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Beautiful, Art, Space

Georgia O'Keeffe, Jonathan Stuhlman, Barbara Buhler Lynes (2007). “Georgia O'Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction”, p.15, Hudson Hills

35 Copy quote
I decided to start anew-to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking. This was one of the best times of my life. There was no one around to look at what I was doing, no one interested, no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working into my own, unknown-no one to satisfy but myself. I began with charcoal and paper and decided not to use any color until it was impossible to do what I wanted to do in black and white. I believe it was June before I needed blue.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Art, Believe, Black And White

Georgia O'Keeffe (1977). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, Viking Pr

44 Copy quote
To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Inspirational, Courage, Art

80 Copy quote
It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Nice, Nerves, Being Nice

71 Copy quote
God told me if I painted that mountain enough, I could have it.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Artist, Mountain, Painting

10 Copy quote
Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Real, Confusing, Details

Georgia O'Keeffe, Jonathan Stuhlman, Barbara Buhler Lynes (2007). “Georgia O'Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction”, p.22, Hudson Hills

39 Copy quote
Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Life, Travel, Attitude

Dennis Abrams, Georgia O'Keeffe (2009). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, p.13, Infobase Publishing

72 Copy quote
A week ago it was the mountains I thought the most wonderful, and today it's the plains. I guess it's the feeling of bigness in both that carries me away.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Feelings, Mountain, Today

52 Copy quote
Happiness goes like the wind, but what is interesting stays.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Happiness, Wind, Interesting

3 Copy quote
I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Women, Flower, Georgia

Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.292, UPNE

6 Copy quote
I want real things ... music that makes holes in the sky.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Real, Sky, Want

14 Copy quote

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Born: November 15, 1887
Died: March 6, 1986
Occupation: Artist
Cite this Page: Citation

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