Hopper Quotes

The only real influence I've ever had is myself. ~ Edward Hopper

We're all Dennis Hopper now. ~ John McWhorter

I will not take what you need to give me. I will take what you want to give me. ~ Grace Hopper

The most dangerous phrase in the language is we've always done ~ Grace Murray Hopper

I was walking down a street and after his death and saw a billboard on the side of a brick wall for Van's shoes. It was a picture of Hopper's face, and all it said was, 'Hopper Lives.' So I think he's still part of youth culture. There are lessons to be learned from Hopper about being a young person who wants to live the art life in America. ~ Tom Folsom

I think Lilyan (Tashman) is one of the most amusing people I know but I believe she dresses in too flamboyant a manner. Where some women wear one or two diamond clasps, she wears four! ~ Hedda Hopper

No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. ~ Edward Hopper

I guess I'm not very human. All I really want to do is paint light on the side of a house. ~ Edward Hopper

There is a sort of elation about sunlight on the upper part of a house. ~ Edward Hopper

I love acting. I just love it. It's in my bones. I remember when I was a kid, I watched an interview with Dennis Hopper talking about Jimmy Dean on the set of Rebel Without A Cause. Jimmy said to him, "If you've got to cry in a scene, you've got to cry. Make it real." And that's all that I believe in. ~ Andrew Lincoln

'Easy Rider' was never a motorcycle movie to me. A lot of it was about politically what was going on in the country. ~ Dennis Hopper

At any given moment, there is always a line representing what your boss will believe. If you step over it, you will not get your budget. Go as close to that line as you can. ~ Grace Hopper

I used to have to wear a gas mask to school when I was a kid because of the dust. I would tell people that the first light I saw was in a movie theater, because the sun was just a little glow. ~ Dennis Hopper

The inside of the Pentagon is an incredible place and a dramatic set. We do [travel] outside, but the inside workings of the civilian oversight of the military inside the Pentagon is really about as exciting as anything you ever want to deal with. It is really amazing. ~ Dennis Hopper

Yes, linseed oil. I used to use poppy oil, but I have heard that poppy oil is given to cracking pigment too, so I use it no longer. ~ Edward Hopper

It's (news) like balls in a Bingo hopper. The same events keep coming up over and over. Earthquake. Coup d'etat. Trade war. Hostage taking. My compulsion is to know whick balls are up on any given day. ~ Author

It's about the characters, it's about the film, it's about the process of making stunning visuals and a huge, epic movie. It doesn't matter if my head was covered in a black plastic bag and I was bouncing around in a space hopper: That's the villain of Chris Nolan's 'Batman!' ~ Tom Hardy

At last, after almost fifty years in the hopper, the most famous unpublished novel in America is in print. Who Shot the Water Buffalo? is a splendid story of comradeship in a time and place of constant peril, but it's Babbs's irrepressible exuberance and vast, affectionate good humor that make the story go. I love this novel. ~ Ed McClanahan

In anger, you look ten years older. ~ Hedda Hopper

The protagonist of Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours doesn't make it easy for us, channeling as he does Barry Hannah and Denis Johnson by way of Rick Bass and Dennis Hopper, and self-presenting as yet another damaged romantic who thinks it's always time to play the cowboy, skating in and out of sense. He can't see right, and he's haunted by nearly everything. He's trying to open up or shut himself down or at least get a hold of himself. He's trying to make do with what he's done, while he reminds us that we're all, one way or another, in that position. ~ Jim Shepard

Of course, there are many, many musicians whose music gives me pleasure, but until I make contact with them, musically or personally, I never assume that anything wonderful will happen. ~ Hugh Hopper

If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint. ~ Edward Hopper

It is better to beg forgiveness, than ask permission. ~ Grace Murray Hopper

On one side you have book burners, Congressional wives and Pat Robertson. On the other side, you have vulgar comedians, foul-mouthed rap groups and Dennis Hopper - all your choices should be so easy. ~ Sandra Bernhard

If only I could cry. I am beyond that. The light, the light, lending itself to empty downtown Saturday, but still the stupid insensate cars flush by oblivious to their stupidity, my silent plea.
It isn't Mexico. It's not Paris. It's a painting by Hopper come to life. I am trapped inside a dead thing. Language is impossible here, even in English. Who has the arrogance to say: I'm mad, this is my crazy view of things, help me.
I'm trapped in a silent world, a tableau of forty years ago. The walls are different, the tables, the heights of the veiling and the chairs. I loom above this letter. The view past the rows of cakes in the plate glass window is unfamiliar. I am a ghost. There is nothing now between me and death. Death is the unfamiliarity of everything, the strangeness of the once familiar. The same spatial configurations only the light is hollow, sick.
I think I lack the energy to hit expensive discos which I don't know where they are to be rejected tonight. I look passable. My energy's low. I love to dance but despair is not a good muse.
This Mexico, babe. Men who don't love you but act wildly as if they do initially. Self-involved, narcissistic men... The men drink and philosophize about pain. The women live it solo and culturelessly. No one cries, except easily, sentimentally. The devil, therefore God, exists.
Oaxaca was a pushover compared to this. Pain had boundaries there.
Spare us big cities, oh lord! ~ Maryse Holder

London's so busy, London's manic half the time. ~ Tom Hopper

Huge with child, and lumbering about dressed in black - I'll look like one of those hopper-barges loaded with refuse and sent out to sea."
"You're too small to be a barge," Cassandra said.
"You'll be a tugboat. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Dennis Hopper is one of the great American lives. ~ Jeffrey Deitch

We're just getting started. We're just beginning to meet what will be the future-we've got the Model T. ~ Grace Hopper

...there is a void in my guts which can only be filled by songs. ~ Jessica Hopper

He regarded her indignantly. "Did she say I broke our engagement?"

"She didn't say hardly anything when I talked to her this morning, just that the two of you reached a mutual decision to end your relationship."

"And you assumed that meant I ended it."

"Didn't you?"

"Hell, no."

"Are you saying Gracie dumped you?"

He saw too late the trap he'd laid for himself.

"'Course not. Nobody dumps me."

"She did, didn't she? She dumped you! Holy Moses! A person of the female species finally gave Bobby Tom Denton back a little bit of what he's been giving out." Grinning widely, she lifted her face to the heavens. "Thank you, Jesus!"

"Will you stop that! She didn't dump me. Haven't you figured out by now that we were never really engaged! It was just a ploy to keep everybody off my back while I was in town." The fact that Terry Jo was making a joke out of this hurt in a way he couldn't express.

"Of course you were engaged. A blind fool could see the two of you love each other."

"We do not! Well, maybe she loves me, but…I care about her. Who wouldn't? She's about the best kind of woman there is. But, love? She's not my type, Terry Jo."

Terry Jo gave him a long, steady gaze. "It's amazing. You don't know any more about women now than you did in high school when you threw me over for Sherri Hopper." She regarded him sadly. "When are you going to grow up, Bobby To ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I still get weirded out when people recognise me. ~ Tom Hopper

Hopper's best friend, Dean Stockwell, who starred with him in 'Blue Velvet,' let me watch golf with him while parsing out memories of when he and Hopper went off the deep end in Mexico. ~ Tom Folsom

Yes," Howie said solemnly. "I can teach you how to be more 'street'".
"For God's sake…"
"Or is it 'urban'? I can't remember. Anyway, I can teach you, grasshopper. Or hip-hopper. ~ Barry Lyga

I was extreme ... from skateboarder to hip-hopper to rave child to lead singer of a rock band - I did it all, and all at the same time. ~ Pink

She looks like she combs her hair with an egg beater. ~ Hedda Hopper

You are the shit, Hopper Kincaid! ~ Kristen Ashley

What this means is that the entire business model for something like Chase's credit card business is not much more than a gigantic welfare fraud scheme. These companies borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from the Fed at rock-bottom rates, then turn around and lend it out to the world at 5, 10, 15, 20 percent, as credit cards and mortgages, boat loans and aircraft loans, and so on. If you pay it back, great, it's a 500 percent or 1,000 percent or 4,000 percent profit for the bank. If you don't pay it back, the company can put your name in the hopper to be sued. A $5,000 debt on a credit card for the now-defunct Circuit City, which was actually a Chase card, became a $13,000 or $14,000 debt by the time the bank finished applying fees and penalties. Just like a welfare application, you have to read the fine print. "They make more on lawsuits than they make on credit interest," says Linda. ~ Matt Taibbi

Like all tools, modern technology has produced some wonderful moments in music and also some horrors. ~ Hugh Hopper

I know, when I look into the eyes of my own children, the look of wonder when I speak of life back in the '60s. That's why the Rolling Stones are such a hit even in their 60s, why Dennis Hopper is so compelling, even when he's making pitches for something unhip as long-term financial planning. ~ Chris Matthews

I was very shy, and it was a lot easier for me to communicate if I had a camera between me and other people. ~ Dennis Hopper

Because deep down you know that someone needs to keep you out of trouble. ~ Mike L. Hopper

By 1940 Grace Hopper was bored. She had no children, her marriage was unexciting, and teaching math was not as fulfilling as she had hoped. ~ Walter Isaacson

I always say Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is my biggest influence. But for painters, I like many, many painters, but I love Francis Bacon the most, and Edward Hopper. ~ David Lynch

Too bad I couldn't take Hopper out drinking with me. He could have become Bar Hopper. ~ Richelle Mead

I recognize very much in Hopper that it does look like the United States; it looks like the 30's and my first impressions of everything, all of which I have to deal with and which gets mixed up in my work and probably gets mixed up in everybody else's work too. ~ Donald Judd

Utopia has a way of hiding in plain sight. ~ David Hopper

Well, I've always been interested in approaching a big city in a train, and I can't exactly describe the sensations, but they're entirely human and perhaps have nothing to do with aesthetics. ~ Edward Hopper

Art is a bad word in Hollywood. You use art too many times and they show you the elevator and then your name is taken off the parking lot. ~ Dennis Hopper

I once got a little camera to use for details of architecture and so forth but the photo was always so different from the perspective the eye gives, I gave it up. ~ Edward Hopper

My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impression of nature. ~ Edward Hopper

[After Easy Rider] I couldn't get another movie, so I lived in Mexico City for a couple of years. I lived in Paris for a couple of years. I didn't take any photographs, and then I went to Japan and saw a Nikon used. I bought it, and I just started, like an alcoholic. I shot 300 rolls of film. That was the beginning of me starting again ... ~ Dennis Hopper

I've received many honors and I'm grateful for them; but I've already received the highest award I'll ever receive, and that has been the privilege and honor of serving very proudly in the United States Navy. ~ Grace Hopper

He who lives for nothing costs the lives of many, but he who lives for something greater than himself preserves those he loves. ~ Christopher Hopper

He's so interesting because you think you know Dennis Hopper, but you don't really know Dennis Hopper. I don't really know Dennis Hopper, I just know him from the silver screen. ~ Nathan Lane

I need something to compare this to. Could I please have a microsecond? ~ Grace Hopper

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It's much easier to apologize than it is to get permission. ~ Grace Hopper

I'm not much of a fly tier. I can do it - my friend calls it 'ham and eggs tying' - and I tie some cool flies that I can't buy in a fly shop, but other than that, I would no more sit down and tie a dozen hopper patterns than I would do something absolutely insane, like build a rod. ~ Jack Ohman

Motherhood is exactly the kind of "special circumstance" that lends itself to memoir. It is a time of transition and sometimes a period of intense identity struggle: Who am I if I spend all day shirtless, trying to nurse a colicky baby? What happened to my former life, my former self? How do I balance my own needs with those of my family? I am drawn to all kinds of motherhood memoirs because I am interested in the different ways that women process the challenges and joys of motherhood, and how they write about life in general through their mother eyes. ~ Kate Hopper

I can wear a hat or take it off, but either way it's a conversation piece. ~ Hedda Hopper

I should have been dead ten times over. I've thought about that a lot. I believe in miracles. It's an absolute miracle that I'm still around. ~ Dennis Hopper

For octopi, ink is a defense mechanism, a means of escape. It is for me as well. Octopi surround themselves with clouds of ink in order to disappear before the clouds dissipate. Sometimes they also create hovering blots of ink that mimic their own shape, so predators will attack the ink and not them. Every time I write about my family, I instinctively obscure the truth with a cloud of self-protection, and invent versions of my life that give me a chance to evade the attacks I dread. The only way I know to get past the sense of threat is to go ahead and release the ink and then slowly wait for the cloud to clear. That might be revision. It might mean time. It might mean a lifetime of time. ~ Briallen Hopper

I guess I'd rather have a truthful neighbor who says he hates me than a lyin' one, who claims he loves me. ~ David Hopper

As an aside, Hop got gold stars because he had buttermilk available for pancakes. These stars started shining when he told me pancakes weren't worth making without buttermilk and, since this was the God's honest truth, I took it as happy indication that Hopper Kincaid and I might just be soul mates. ~ Kristen Ashley

I've been sober now for 18 years. With all the drugs, psychedelics and narcotics I did, I was [really] an alcoholic. Honestly, I only used to do cocaine so I could sober up and drink more. My last five years of drinking was a nightmare. I was drinking a half-gallon of rum with a fifth of rum on the side, in case I ran out, 28 beers a day, and three grams of cocaine just to keep me moving around. And I thought I was doing fine because I wasn't crawling around drunk on the floor. ~ Dennis Hopper

Everyone goes to the 'Grands-Boulevards' (in Paris, ed.) and let himself loose ... Do not picture these in costume, they are not for the most part ... perhaps a clown with a big nose, or two girls with bare necks and short skirts ... the parade of the queens of the halls (markets) is also one of the events ... Some are pretty but look awkward in their silk dresses and crowns, particularly as the broad sun displays their defects - perhaps a neck too thin or a painted face which shows ghastley white in the sunlight. ~ Edward Hopper

In its most limited sense, modern, art would seem to concern itself only with the technical innovations of the period. ~ Edward Hopper

If one ox could not do the job they did not try to grow a bigger ox, but used two oxen. When we need greater computer power, the answer is not to get a bigger computer, but ... to build systems of computers and operate them in parallel. ~ Grace Hopper

I think that zinc white has a property of scaling and cracking. ~ Edward Hopper

You can very easily be turned into a commodity. I've grown up with it. ~ Henry Hopper

If the technical innovations of the Impressionists led merely to a more accurate representation of nature, it was perhaps of not much value in enlarging their powers of expression. ~ Edward Hopper

When I was about 14. I saw my first mountain. I saw the ocean for the first time. I remember thinking that that ocean looked very similar to our wheat fields. I didn't know what I thought I would see when I looked out at the ocean, but I thought I'd see something different. ~ Dennis Hopper

Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. ~ Edward Hopper

Ann Sothern's dressing room ... was unbelievably lush and beautiful. More elegant than many homes I've been in. ~ Hedda Hopper

You had to stand in line to hate him. ~ Hedda Hopper

I forget I'm on a TV show sometimes. ~ Tom Hopper

There is a famous painting, Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. I am in love with that painting. Sometimes, I think everyone is like the people in that painting, everyone lost in their own private universes of pain or sorrow or guilt, everyone remote and unknowable. The painting reminds me of you. It breaks my heart. ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

I think I found that when I was doing a show on a regular basis and just acting constantly, that was when I was at my happiest. ~ Tom Hopper

Maine likes to call itself 'America's Vacationland.' For many artists, though, it's the office. Since the 19th century, painters from all over the country - including Edward Hopper, Alex Katz, John Marin, Fairfield Porter, Neil Welliver and Andrew Wyeth - have spent large chunks of time there. ~ Terry Teachout

We're flooding people with information. We need to feed it through a processor. A human must turn information into intelligence or knowledge. ~ Grace Hopper

Independent films in this country are in the same position. Miramax and Fine Line are not independent - they're with Disney! Come on. Or they're with Warner Brothers. They're all with somebody. ~ Dennis Hopper

I made a picture called Super Mario Bros., and my six-year-old son at the time - he's now 18 - he said, 'Dad I think you're probably a pretty good actor, but why did you play that terrible guy King Koopa in Super Mario Bros?' And I said, 'Well Henry, I did that so you could have shoes,' and he said, 'Dad, I don't need shoes that badly.' ~ Dennis Hopper

If the picture needs varnishing later, I allow a restorer to do that, if there's any restoring necessary. ~ Edward Hopper

Two of the cruelest, most primitive punishments our town deals out to those who fall from favor are the empty mailbox and the silent telephone. ~ Hedda Hopper

Tacked above my desk are photos of artists I admire - Hopper, Sargent, Twain - and postcards from beloved bookstores where I've spent all my time and money - Tattered Cover, Elliot Bay, Harvard Bookstore. ~ J.R. Moehringer

Seven of those days were pretty good. The eighth day was the bad one. ~ Dennis Hopper

I'm also inspired by anything that I consider great. It makes me want to raise my game too - Hitchcock movies, Hopper paintings, Springsteen concerts. ~ Harlan Coben

If you do something once, people will call it an accident. If you do it twice, they call it a coincidence. But do it a third time and you've just proven a natural law! ~ Grace Hopper

The reality of things going on around me is more interesting than the fantasies of the world I work in. ~ Dennis Hopper

Yessir, some things is sin 'cause God says so. Some things is sin 'cause they hurt other people. And some things is just pure-dee stupid. ~ David Hopper

When she opened up that closet and found you cowering in the corner, what did she do? You're still alive, aren't you? You're still wearing that sacrilegious getup. What did Ashley do that you were so fucking afraid of?'
Villarde only lowered his head.
'You can't even say it, can you?'
Villarde opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Then he gasped, a bizarre gagging sound that prompted disgust to flood through me. He was, without doubt, one of the most wretched beings I'd ever laid eyes on.
'She pulled me to my feet,' he whispered. 'And she ... '
'She what?' shouted Hopper.
'She ... ' Villarde was crying. 'There's really nothing more terrifying -
'WHAT?'
'She told me she ... forgave me.'
The words were so fragile and unexpected, no one spoke. ~ Marisha Pessl

So many people say painting is fun. I don't find it fun at all. It's hard work for me. ~ Edward Hopper

Hustling sex for cash ain't dangerous if you learn the tricks quick, and that means puttin' yourself in a different mindset. Always scout for an exit for when you need it. Act confident and tough and you won't get hurt. Being scared or nervous will get you cut up and stuffed in a fuckin' bag. ~ Jon Michaelsen

It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. ~ Grace Hopper

I see myself as a creative being. My only fear is compromising my integrity. I guess that's a constant struggle. ~ Henry Hopper

It is easier to apologize than to get permission. ~ Grace Hopper

If you want my ghost just say ' We've always done it that way.' and i will haunt you for 24 hours. ~ Grace Hopper

What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house. ~ Edward Hopper

Hollywood was always heartbreak town, though most of the world fancied it to be Shangri-La, King Solomon's mines, and Fort Knox rolled into one big ball of 24-karat gold. ~ Hedda Hopper

When we're out of the eighties, the nineties are gonna make the sixties look like the fifties! ~ Dennis Hopper