Edvard Munch Quotes

Death is pitch-dark, but colors are light. To be a painter, one must work with rays of light. ~ Edvard Munch

Mom: How u today

Me:

Edvard Munch

Despair, 1829.

Oil on canvas

36 1/4 x 26 1/2" (92 x 67 cm) ~ Unknown

Some colors reconcile themselves to one another, others just clash. ~ Edvard Munch

My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively religious - to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I inherited the seeds of madness. The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born. ~ Edvard Munch

From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity. ~ Edvard Munch

Your face encompasses the beauty of the whole earth. Your lips, as red as ripening fruit, gently part as if in pain. It is the smile of a corpse. Now the hand of death touches life. The chain is forged that links the thousand families that are dead to the thousand generations to come. ~ Edvard Munch

Any number of holier-than-thou honorable realists walk around in the belief that they have accomplished something, simply because they tell you for the hundredth time that a field is green and a red-painted house is painted red. ~ Edvard Munch

My work is based on a tradition quite distinct from the Eckersberg tradition, a Nordic line of development that had never been clearly and consistently defined in the literature on art. This line is not a straight one; it has the strangest and most fascinating twists and curves, and includes such artists as Edvard Munch, Ernest Josephson, Hill , Hansen Jacobsen, Johannes Holbek, Jens Lund, and Emile Nolde. Not all of them equally well known. ~ Asger Jorn

Oil-painting is a developed technique. Why go backwards? ~ Edvard Munch

A work of art can only come from the interior of man. Art is the form of the image formed upon the nerves, heart, brain and eye of man. ~ Edvard Munch

The camera will never compete with the brush and palette until such time as photography can be taken to Heaven or Hell. ~ Edvard Munch

This kind of painting with its large frames is a bourgeois drawing-room art. It is an art dealer's art-and that came in after the civil wars following the French Revolution. ~ Edvard Munch

I do not believe in the art which is not the compulsive result of man's urge to open his heart ~ Edvard Munch

My breakthrough came very late in life, really only starting when I was 50 ... I had the strength for new deeds and ideas. ~ Edvard Munch

It would be quite amusing to preach a bit to all those people who for many years now have been looking at our paintings and either laughed or shook their heads reproachfully. They do not believe that these impressions, these instant sensations, could contain even the smallest grain of sanity. If a tree is red or blue, or a face is blue or green, they are sure that is insanity. ~ Edvard Munch

Without anxiety and illness I should have been like a ship without a rudder. ~ Edvard Munch

No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love. ~ Edvard Munch

In Isaac Newton's lifetime, no more than a few thousand people had any idea what he looked like, though he was one of England's most famous men, yet now millions of people have quite a clear idea - based on replicas of copies of rather poorly painted portraits. Even more pervasive and indelible are the smile of Mona Lisa, The Scream of Edvard Munch, and the silhouettes of various fictional extraterrestrials. These are memes, living a life of their own, independent of any physical reality. "This may not be what George Washington looked like then," a tour guide was overheard saying of the Gilbert Stuart painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "but this is what he looks like now." Exactly. ~ James Gleick

All art, literature, and music must be born in your heart's blood. Art is your heart's blood. ~ Edvard Munch

At different moments you see with different eyes. You see differently in the morning than you do in the evening. In addition, how you see is also dependent on your emotional state. Because of this, a motif can be seen in many different ways, and this is what makes art interesting. ~ Edvard Munch

When I started experimenting with fantasy and horror films and looking for characters who had some sort of emotional or mental difficulty, I saw opportunities to express my music - dare I say art - in a way that I could get a bit surreal - like Francis Bacon's screaming pope, or Edvard Munch with [The Scream]. ~ Nicolas Cage

A work of art comes only from inside a human being. ~ Edvard Munch

I find it difficult to imagine an afterlife, such as Christians, or at any rate many religious people, conceive it, believing that the conversations with relatives and friends interrupted here on earth will be continued in the hereafter. ~ Edvard Munch

Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye ... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul. ~ Edvard Munch

I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous infinite scream of nature. ~ Edvard Munch

When I paint, I never think of selling. People simply fail to understand that we paint in order to experiment and to develop ourselves as we strive for greater heights. ~ Edvard Munch

For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art. ~ Edvard Munch

It is better to have a good painting with ten holes than ten bad paintings without any holes. ~ Edvard Munch

I sense a scream passing through nature. I painted ... the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked. ~ Edvard Munch

By painting colors and lines and forms seen in quickened mood I was seeking to make this mood vibrate as a phonograph does. This was the origin of the paintings in The Frieze of Life. ~ Edvard Munch

Without fear and disease, my life would be like a boat without oars. ~ Edvard Munch

I don't believe in an art that is not born out of man's need to open his heart. ~ Edvard Munch

My will exceeds my talents. ~ Edvard Munch

What is art? Art grows from joy and sorrow, but mostly from sorrow. It grows from human lives. ~ Edvard Munch

One can easily tell that the creator of the paintings in the Sistine Chapel was above all a sculptor. ~ Edvard Munch

Human fates are like planets

Like a star that emerges
from the dark –
and meets another star –
shines for a second before disappearing again
into the dark – [it is] in this way – in this way
a man and a woman meet – glide towards
one another are illuminated in love's
flames – to then disappear
in their separate directions –
Only a few meet in a
single large blaze – where they both
can be fully united ~ Edvard Munch

In my childhood I always felt that I was treated unjustly, without a mother, sick, and with the threat of punishment in Hell hanging over my head. ~ Edvard Munch

Painting picture by picture, I followed the impressions my eye took in at heightened moments. I painted only memories, adding nothing, no details that I did not see. Hence the simplicity of the paintings, their emptiness. ~ Edvard Munch

Anybody who perceives colors can become a painter. It's simply a question of whether or not one has felt anything and whether one has the courage to recount the things one has felt. ~ Edvard Munch

My art is rooted in a single reflection: why am I not as others are? ... my art gives meaning to my life. ~ Edvard Munch

The notes I have made are not a diary in the ordinary sense, but partly lengthy records of my spiritual experiences, and partly poems in prose. ~ Edvard Munch

The rich man who gives, steals twice over. First he steals the money and then the hearts of men. ~ Edvard Munch

Soon after my husband and I started living together, he learned to make noise before coming into my writing space. He learned to do this because if he didn't I would get startled and scream. That would startle him and he would scream. It was 'Night of the Living Dead' meets Edvard Munch till we worked things out.
When I write, especially when the writing takes off, I fall into a trancelike state in which I dream with my eyes open. This is why I write. It is the opium I crave, this entry into another state of consciousness. I used to think it meant I was a great writer, that it was proof of my 'genius.' I also used to think it meant I was a nut who zapped into hallucination as soon as her husband shut the door – 'Diary of a Mad Housewife' with computer. I now realize it merely means I am writing. ~ Marcia Golub

I do not paint what I see, but what I saw. ~ Edvard Munch

My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder. My art is grounded in reflections over being different from others. My sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art. I want to keep those sufferings ~ Edvard Munch

I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun set. I felt a tinge of melancholy. Suddenly the sky became a bloody red ... I stood there, trembling with fright. And I felt a loud, unending scream piercing nature. ~ Edvard Munch

From the moment of my birth, the angels of anxiety, worry, and death stood at my side, followed me out when I played, followed me in the sun of springtime and in the glories of summer. They stood at my side in the evening when I closed my eyes, and intimidated me with death, hell, and eternal damnation. And I would often wake up at night and stare widely into the room: Am I in Hell? ~ Edvard Munch

I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature. ~ Edvard Munch

Art comes from joy and pain ... But mostly from pain. ~ Edvard Munch

My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Sometimes I try to leave my narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find myself drawn inexorably back towards the chasm's edge, and there I shall walk until the day I finally fall into the abyss. ~ Edvard Munch

The Academies of Art are nothing but great painting factories - those with talent are fed in at one end, and they come out as mechanical painting machines. ~ Edvard Munch

When I paint a person, his enemies always find the portrait a good likeness. ~ Edvard Munch

The painting showed a hairless, oppressed creature with a head like an inverted pear, its hands clapped in horror to its ears, its mouth open in a vast, soundless scream. Twisted ripples of the creature's torment, echoes of its cry, flooded out into the air surrounding it; the man or woman, whichever it was, had become contained by its own howl. It had covered its ears against its own sound. The creature stood on a bridge and no one else was present; the creature screamed in isolation. Cut off by - or despite - its outcry. ~ Philip K. Dick

The colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas. ~ Edvard Munch

In my art I have tried to explain to myself life and its meaning. I have also tried to help others to clarify their lives. ~ Edvard Munch

Without fear and illness, I could never have accomplished all I have ~ Edvard Munch

The conductor must breathe life into the score. It is you and you alone who must expose it to the understanding, reveal the hidden jewel to the sun at the most flattering angles. ~ Charles Munch

I'm sorry, Prince Edvard. You had a wonderful civilization here on Marduk. You could have made almost anything of it. But it's too late now. You've torn down the gates; the barbarians are in. ~ H. Beam Piper

when life hands you lemons you should take them . . . and whack life by the butt with those damn lemon until its bruised and then go munch on some chocolate ~ Mei

You know, I'm gonna marry a girl just to piss you off."
Mom laughed. "Then you'll deserve estrogen-fuelled psychotic rants about shoes and cellulite."
"Isn't that a little stereotypical?"
"Of course it is," Mom said nonchalantly. "Just like saying all gay men love cock and lesbians love to munch clams. ~ N.R. Walker

It was quite difficult to find a place to do what we wanted, namely to study the neurological basis of behaviour and especially learning and memory, which we were particularly interested in. ~ Edvard Moser

Focus is passé. In the modern world we want to feel everything all the time. There is no point in just taking a walk in the park when we can also listen to headphones, munch on a hot dog, crank up our vibrating soles to the maximum, and check out the passing carnival of humanity. Our choices about the creed of a new world order: stimulation! Thought and creativity have become subservient to the singular goal of saturating our senses. ~ Neil Strauss

Music is an art that expresses the inexpressible. It rises far above what words can mean or the intelligence define. Its domain is the imponderable and impalpable land of the unconscious. ~ Charles Munch

In our education system, we are taught to munch figures and remember them for lifetime. But does it help? We are not taught how to make decisions. ~ Chetan Bhagat

NINA IS A FREAKY BEAST, OF EVERYBODY LIKED THE LEAST, WE ALL HATE HER VERY MUCH, WE'D ALL EAT HER UP FOR LUNCH! MUNCH! MUNCH! ~ Allie Peterson

I fully realize that every promise I make, the Republicans will double and the Democrats will redouble. They think this will make me vulnerable, but they don't know I have some tricks up my sleeve, along with a box of raisins to munch on while I'm waiting for the returns to come in. ~ Gracie Allen

I realize that humans cannot bear very much reality. Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your heads into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you live outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature. Muad'Dib came to tell you about that. Without understanding his message, you cannot revere him! ~ Frank Herbert

The ads have also helped manufacture a sense of panic about time, depicting families so rushed and harried in the morning that there is no time to make breakfast, not even to pour some milk over a bowl of cereal. No, the only hope is to munch on a cereal bar (iced with synthetic "milk" frosting) in the bus or car. (Tell me: Why can't these hassled families set their alarm clocks, like, ten minutes earlier?!) ~ Michael Pollan

I'm starting to wonder why were friends."
"Well, Munch, you have to decide if the relationship is worth salvaging. Make a list of the good stuff, then make a list of the bad stuff. If one outweighs the other, then you know what you gotta do. Trust me, that method hasn't failed me yet. ~ Angie Thomas

She was going to go to her room,munch on chocolate,then collapse into bed.
And if her upstairs neighbors decided to talk about who the daddy was or cry again about how much David was loved,she'd go up there and give them somthing to really bloody cry about. ~ Suzanne Wright

Half the world starves. What a planet. And the eating, if you're lucky enough to do any. Stuffing pieces of dead animals into a hole in your face. Then munch, munch, munch. If there's anybody watching, they must be dying of laughter. ~ Iris Murdoch

Oh it's just my breakfast, Lisa. A couple of bags of Maltesers, a Toblerone, a Bounty, Jelly Tots, some Skips, seven bags of Monster Munch, Raj was doing a special offer on those, a box of Creme Eggs, and a can of Diet Coke. ~ David Walliams

In the goblin tongue, knowing from the book that Hephaestus spoke it but hoping that the dragon wouldn't know he knew, Drizzt yelled, "When the stupid dragon follows me out, come out and get the rest!"
Hephaestus skidded to a stop and spun about, eyeing the low tunnel that led to the mines. The stupid dragon was in a frightful fit, wanting to munch on the imposing drow but fearing a robbery from behind...

...In the end, Hephaestus settled the dilemma as he settled every problem: He vowed to thoroughly eat the next merchant party that came his way. ~ R.A. Salvatore

Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your head into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you look outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature. ~ Frank Herbert

So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon! ~ Robert Browning

I never cheat or steal. Also, I never wear a top-hat with a sack coat or munch bananas in public on the streets, because a gentleman does not do those things either. I would as soon do the one as the other sort of thing
it is all a matter of harmony and good taste. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

The old woman is talking to herself. In between speaking to us, she's saying things like, A finger for breakfast, a hand for lunch, an ear for dinner, munch, munch, munch! ~ David Estes

If reshaping a life style boils down to pretending and dwindling into a world of make-believe, living may turn into a schizophrenic merry-go-round and the real self might be crunched and munched on, piece by piece. ("He did not know that she knew") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Suddenly a mist fell from my eyes and I knew the way I had to take. ~ Edvard Grieg

I look forward to going to Chicago because it's where I grew up, and the food there is so munch. Especially during the winter, I get deep dish pizza or Italian beef, and it warms me up. It's something I don't normally get, especially here in L.A. where you're always trying to be healthy. ~ Ron Funches

For me, the two weeks between Christmas and Twelfth Night have come to be reserved for desultory reading. The pressure of the holiday is over, the weather outside is frightful, there are lots of leftovers to munch on, vacation hours are being used up. ~ Michael Dirda

Isaiah and Beth sit on the bed and munch on a shared container of pepper steak.
"Stop bogarting the rice." Isaiah moves some of the pile from Beth's side of the container, and she darts her fork as if to stab him, but he quickly snatches his hand back.
"You got the egg roll," exclaims Beth. "I get the rice. That's how stuff works between us, so stop messing with the system. ~ Katie McGarry

I gained a sense of why Grieg was so touched by the wistful, elegiac folk music of Norway, and what he meant when he said self-effacingly that his music had a 'taste of cod' about it. ~ Anthony Tommasini

Morning. Strawberry sky dusted with white winter powder sugar sun. And nobody to munch on it with ~ Francesca Lia Block

I am sure my music has a taste of codfish in it. ~ Edvard Grieg

Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I only wanted ... to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home. ~ Edvard Grieg

Here I am baking cookies and looking all over the house for you," she turned her attention to Gabe and uncovered his eyes, "hoping to bring my man something to munch on, and instead I walk in on your crazy monkey sex! Thanks you two, now I'm officially scarred for life." She swatted the air in front of her, as if she could shoo away the images, and darted over the broken dishes and cookies, up the staircase, with a flustered string of expletives.
Gabe watched her ascend the stairway and let out another amused cackle. "Oh don't mind her. She's acting like she just witnessed her parents in the act." Bending down, he snatched a cookie and gave us a thumbs-up. "You look hot, kids. Carry on. ~ Rachael Wade

The collective conscience of a hundred musicians is no light burden. Think for a moment of what it would mean to a pianist if by some miracle every key of his instrument should suddenly become a living thing. ~ Charles Munch

Dark Jar Tin Zoo's face is sallow, his cheeks sunk in, and he looks like Edvard Munch's "The Scream," only less colorful. ~ Jarod Kintz

Peace and beauty? You think Indians are so worried about peace and beauty? ... If Wovoka came back to life, he'd be so pissed off. If the real Pocahontas came back, you think she'd be happy about being a cartoon? If Crazy Horse, or Geronimo, or Sitting Bull came back, they'd see what you white people have done to Indians, and they'd start a war. They'd see the homeless Indians staggering around downtown. They'd see fetal-alcohol-syndrome babies. They'd see the sorry-ass reservations. They'd learn about Indian suicides and infant mortality rates. They'd listen to some dumb-ass Disney song and feel like hurting somebody. They'd read books by assholes like Wilson, and they would start killing themselves some white people, and then kill some asshole Indians too.

Dr. Mather, if the Ghost Dance worked, there would be no exceptions. All you white people would disappear. All of you. If those dead Indians came back to life ,they wouldn't crawl into a sweathouse with you. They wouldn't smoke the pipe with you. They wouldn't go to the movies and munch popcorn with you. They'd kill you. They'd gut you and eat your heart. ~ Sherman Alexie

I ate them like salad, books were my sandwich for lunch, my tiffin and dinner and midnight munch. I tore out the pages, ate them with salt, doused them with relish, gnawed on the bindings, turned the chapters with my tongue! Books by the dozen, the score and the billion. I carried so many home I was hunchbacked for years. Philosophy, art history, politics, social science, the poem, the essay, the grandiose play, you name 'em, I ate 'em. ~ Ray Bradbury