Julian Schnabel Quotes

Traditionally, photography is supposed to capture an event that has passed; but that is not what I'm looking for. Photography brings the past into the present when you look at it...

Making a painting is like playing the saxophone. You hit the note and it comes out.

I do dream about art, and images come to me in dreams. I am definitely hoping to be in touch with my subconscious. I expect a call any minute.

Painting is like breathing to me. It’s what I do all the time. Every day I make art, whether it is painting, writing or making a movie.

Paintings are not like the Internet. They're not like movies. They're not electronic-friendly. You have to go see them. You have to stand in front of them. That's the great thing about them.

I work with things left over from other things.

It doesn't matter what I think I am, it matters what I do.

I want the paintings to take me or the viewer out somewhere else.

I think beauty is a feeling that you get after you've had an experience. It's the way you feel about it that is beautiful.

I've never made a movie to make money. I've never made a painting to make money.

I think not knowing what to think of your paintings is a good place to be.

If I hung one of my paintings next to someone else's, I knew mine would kind of pop off the wall.

I don't think the meaning in my paintings comes from just using broken dishes.

I think it's good when people don't write good things about your work. I mean, what a great compliment it is to be called a charlatan.

Some people might think that the paintings are involved with a mythic - not just subject matter - but a certain sort of physical space that the paintings occupy...like personages.

Everything I've seen becomes real once it becomes memory. The films I've seen are interchangeable with things that have really happened to me.

I think that truth is stranger than fiction, and it's nice to know the people you're making a movie about.

I'm not saying I'm the only Jewish person who cares about Palestinian people, but unfortunately, their voices are not necessarily heard as loudly as they should be.

I think style is a fringe benefit that looks like you made it.

My compulsion is to create things.

We need to not be scared [of muslim], but understand each other. When you're around these people, you see they have much more in common than their differences.

I like when people get really close to the paintings, when they can't really get away from them, I like them to operate in that way on the viewer.

It's nice to see your name in print. It's interesting.

You can't have a good bullfight without a good bull.

I think it was so unfair that people attacked Freida Pinto for being an Indian, playing a Palestinian.

There's been too much attention on marketing. Can't we just talk about the paintings?

I never paid much attention to being Jewish when I was a kid. In fact, I'd say my religion was more surfing than Judaism - that's what I spent most of my time doing.

I think it's your own ghost, seeing the work and just thinking if it will be okay to leave that around.

I don't think people are terribly interested in young artists who were doing interesting thing, but I don't think people are terribly interested in young artists.

I wanted to show painting paintings first, then the plate paintings; now I can show that I've sort of freed myself from stylistic inhibitions.

I was always very... impatient about showing my paintings to people.

The thing about living in New York is that there are other artists; that is the most difficult, I think they are the hardest critics.

There are generations of people who have never seen a big plate painting in person. And they don't know what the hell they look like, they don't know what it feels like to stand in a room with them.

There are certain times you want to be here and there are certain times you want to just go. And when you go, it's usually so exhausting you have to check into a hospital when you come home!

You seem to make different concessions with yourself about what you want to focus on or not, and what you want to pay attention to.

The movie [Miral] is not pro-Palestinian. It's about Palestinians. It's a Palestinian story, written by a Palestinian person. I don't know anybody else that could have done that

Maybe my work looks a little crazy, a little insane, but I don't really see myself as a crazy artist or a shaman artist.

I think people have problems sometimes when things are too general. In fact, they are not really general at all.

Can I find a poetic that can be subversive enough to grab people in some subliminal way, to where they feel that they are altered and have had an experience that belonged to them?

Many people say to me, "I saw [Miral] and it really stayed with me. I woke up the next day and really thought about it, and have been thinking about it for awhile." That was my goal.

I don't know if I could, like, see a face and know what the face of beauty looks like, but after I've seen it I know if I've felt like it was beauty.

I guess I am ruthless too because that's what makes a great artist. But I also respect people, I don't go around stepping on their heads.

Sometimes my kids might tell me they had a dream or and maybe I'll paint some paintings from their dream. That's one good thing you get from your kids. Rob them of their dreams.

When I'm making a movie, I don't like to know what's going to happen next. I like to watch something and be surprised all the time, and just not know, and let it take me wherever.

I don't think my paintings are self-conscious but you feel the consciousness of them. Without them being self-conscious.

I have a completely romantic idea about making paintings, I guess.

I think basically I'm a painter, but I would use anything to make my point.

I think, basically, I'm an abstract artist. I just think that that's not even an issue. I think everything's abstract.

I see paintings everywhere. I look at stuff and it looks like painting to me.

I didn't want to be like everybody else. Art was my religion.