text:
Rear Window

Rear Window is a 1954 film about a photographer, laid up with a broken leg, who spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
 * Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Cornell Woolrich (story) and John Michael Hayes (screenplay).

Suspense of screaming proportions! Taglines

L.B. Jeffries

 * [regarding Thorwald] That's no ordinary look. That's the kind of a look a man gives when he's afraid somebody might be watching him.

Stella

 * The New York State sentence for a Peeping Tom is six months in the work house...They got no windows in the work house. You know, in the old days, they used to put your eyes out with a red-hot poker. Any of those bikini bombshells you're always watchin' worth a red-hot poker? Oh dear, we've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes, sir. How's that for a bit of home-spun philosophy?

Dialogue

 * Jeff: You've got to get me out of here. Six weeks sitting in a two-room apartment with nothing to do but look out the window at the neighbors. ..If you don't pull me out of this swamp of boredom, I'm gonna do something drastic...like what? I'm gonna get married and then I'll never be able to go anywhere.
 * Editor: It's about time you got married, before you turn into a lonesome, bitter old man.
 * Jeff: Yeah, can't you just see me, rushin' home to a hot apartment to listen to the automatic laundry and the electric dishwasher and the garbage disposal, the nagging wife.
 * Editor: Jeff, wives don't nag, they discuss.
 * Jeff: Is that so, that so? Maybe in the high rent district they discuss, in my neighborhood they still nag.
 * Editor: Well, um, you know best.

 * Stella: I got a nose for trouble. I can smell it ten miles away...I can smell trouble right here in this apartment. First you smash your leg. Then you get to lookin' out the window. See things you shouldn't see. Trouble. I can see you in court now, surrounded by a bunch of lawyers in double-breasted suits. You're pleading: 'Judge, it was only a little bit of innocent fun. I love my neighbors like a father.' And the Judge says, 'Well, congratulations, you've just given birth to three years in Dannemora.'
 * Jeff: Yeah, right now I'd welcome trouble...You know, I think you're right. I think there is going to be trouble around here.
 * Stella: ...What kind of trouble?
 * Jeff: Lisa Fremont.
 * Stella: Are you kidding? She's a beautiful young girl and you're a reasonably healthy young man.
 * Jeff: She expects me to marry her.
 * Stella: That's normal.
 * Jeff: I don't want to.
 * Stella: That's abnormal.
 * Jeff: I'm just not ready for marriage.
 * Stella: Every man's ready for marriage when the right girl comes along. And Lisa Fremont is the right girl for any man with half a brain who can get one eye open.
 * Jeff: Oh, she's all right.
 * Stella: What did you do? Have a fight?
 * Jeff: No.
 * Stella: Her father loading up the shotgun?
 * Jeff: What? Please, Stella.
 * Stella: It's happened before you know. Some of the world's happiest marriages have, uh, started under the gun, as you might say.
 * Jeff: No, she's just not the girl for me.
 * Stella: Yeah, she's only perfect.
 * Jeff: She's too perfect. She's too talented, she's too beautiful. She's too sophisticated. She's too everything but what I want.
 * Stella: Is, um, what you want something you can discuss?
 * Jeff: Well, it's very simple, Stella. She belongs to that rarified atmosphere of Park Avenue, you know. Expensive restaurants, literary cocktail parties...Can you imagine her tramping around the world with a camera bum who never has more than a week's salary in the bank? If she was only ordinary.
 * Stella: You ever gonna get married?
 * Jeff: I'll probably get married one of these days, and when I do, it's gonna be to someone who thinks of life not just as a new dress, and a lobster dinner, the latest scandal. I need a woman who's willing...to go anywhere and do anything and love it. So the honest thing for me to do is just to call the whole thing off and let her find somebody else.
 * Stella: Yeah, I can hear you now. Get out of my life. You're a perfectly wonderful woman - you're too good for me. Look, Mr. Jefferies, I'm not an educated woman, but I can tell you one thing. When a man and a woman see each other and like each other they ought to come together - wham! Like a couple of taxis on Broadway, not sit around analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle.
 * Jeff: There's an intelligent way to approach marriage.
 * Stella: Intelligence! Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence. Hah! Modern marriage!

 * Jeff: Did you ever get shot at? Did you ever get run over? Did you ever get sandbagged at night because somebody got unfavorable publicity from your camera? Did you ever...those high-heels, they'll be great in the jungle and the nylons and those six ounce lingerie...
 * Lisa: Three!
 * Jeff: All right. Three! They'll make a big hit in Finland just before you freeze to death?
 * Lisa: Well, if there's one thing I know, it's how to wear the proper clothes.
 * Jeff: Yeah, yeah. Well try and find a raincoat in Brazil, even when it isn't raining. Lisa. In this job, you carry one suitcase, your home is the available transportation. You don't sleep very much, you bathe less, and sometimes the food that you eat is made from things that you couldn't even look at when they're alive.
 * Lisa: Jeff, you don't have to be deliberately repulsive just to impress me I'm wrong.
 * Jeff: Deliberately repulsive! I'm just trying to make it sound good. You just have to face it, Lisa, you're not meant for that kind of a life. Few people are.
 * Lisa: You're too stubborn to argue with.
 * Jeff: I'm not stubborn - I'm just truthful.
 * Lisa: I know, a lesser man would have told me it was one long holiday - and I would have been awakened to a rude disillusionment.
 * Jeff: Oh, well now, wait a minute. Now wait a minute. If you want to get vicious on this, I'll be very happy to accommodate you.
 * Lisa: No, I don't particularly want that. [She rises and moves away.] So that's it. You won't stay here and I can't go with you.
 * Jeff: It would be the wrong thing.
 * Lisa: You don't think either one of us could ever change?
 * Jeff: Right now, it doesn't seem so.
 * Lisa: [preparing to leave] I'm in love with you. I don't care what you do for a living. I'd just like to be part of it somehow. It's deflating to find out the only way I can be part of it is to take out a subscription to your magazine. I guess I'm not the girl I thought I was.
 * Jeff: There's nothing wrong with you, Lisa. You've got this town in the palm of your hand.
 * Lisa: Not quite it seems. Goodbye, Jeff. [She turns and starts for the doorway]
 * Jeff: You mean, 'Good night.'
 * Lisa: I mean what I said.
 * Jeff: Well, Lisa, couldn't we just, uh, couldn't we just keep things status quo?
 * Lisa: Without any future?
 * Jeff: Well, when am I gonna see you again?
 * Lisa: Not for a long time...[pause]...at least not until tomorrow night.

 * Lisa: How far does a girl have to go before you notice her?
 * Jeff: Well if she's pretty enough, she doesn't have to go anywhere. She just has to be.
 * Lisa: Well, ain't I? Pay attention to me.
 * Jeff: Well, I'm, I'm not exactly on the other side of the room.
 * Lisa: Your mind is. When I want a man, I want all of you.

 * Jeff: Don't, don't you ever have any problems?
 * Lisa: I have one now.
 * Jeff: So do I.
 * Lisa: Tell me about it.
 * Jeff: Why, why would a man leave his apartment three times on a rainy night with a suitcase and come back three times?
 * Lisa: He likes the way his wife welcomes him home.
 * Jeff: Oh no. No, no, no. Not this salesman's wife. And why didn't he go to work today?
 * Lisa: Homework. It's more interesting.
 * Jeff: What's interesting about a butcher knife and a small saw wrapped in newspaper? Huh?
 * Lisa: Nothing, thank heaven.
 * Jeff: Why hasn't he been in his wife's bedroom all day?
 * Lisa: I wouldn't dare answer that.
 * Jeff: Well, listen. I'll answer it, Lisa, there's something terribly wrong.
 * Lisa: And I'm afraid it's with me. [Lisa leaves him to go to the couch and smoke a cigarette.]
 * Jeff: What do you think?
 * Lisa: Something too frightful to utter.
 * Jeff: He went out a few minutes ago in his undershirt. He hasn't come back yet. That would be a terrible job to tackle. Just how would you start to cut up a human body?
 * Lisa: Jeff, I'll be honest with you. You're beginning to scare me a little.

 * Jeff: I've seen it through that window. I've seen bickering and family quarrels and mysterious trips at night, knives and saws and ropes, and now since last evening, not a sign of the wife. All right, now you tell me where she is...
 * Lisa: Maybe he's leaving his wife, I don't know, I don't care. Lots of people have knives and saws and ropes around their houses and lots of men don't speak to their wives all day. Lots of wives nag and men hate them and trouble starts. But very very few of them end up in murder if that's what you're thinking.
 * Jeff: It's pretty hard for you to keep away from that word isn't it?
 * Lisa: You could see all that he did, couldn't you?
 * Jeff: Of course, I...
 * Lisa: You could see because the shades were up and, and he walked along the corridor and the street and the back yard. Oh Jeff, do you think a murderer would let you see all that? That he wouldn't pull the shades down and hide behind them?
 * Jeff: Just where he's being clever. He's being nonchalant about things...
 * Lisa: Oh, and that's where you're not being clever. A murderer would never parade his crime in front of an open window.
 * Jeff: Why not?
 * Lisa: [pointing to the newlyweds' window] Why, for all you know, there's probably something a lot more sinister going on behind those windows.
 * Jeff: Where? Oh, no comment.

 * Lt. Doyle: Didn't see the killing or the body. How do you know there was a murder?
 * Jeff: Because everything this fellow's done has been suspicious: trips at night in the rain, knifes, saws, trunks with rope, and now this wife that isn't there anymore.
 * Lt. Doyle: I admit it all has a mysterious sound. Could be any number of things - murder's the least possible.
 * Jeff: Well, don't tell me he's an unemployed magician amusing the neighborhood with his sleight-of-hand. Now don't tell me that.
 * Lt. Doyle: It's too obvious, a stupid way to commit murder in full view of fifty windows? Then sit over there smoking a cigar, waiting for the police to come and pick him up?
 * Jeff: Officer, go do your duty. Go pick him up!
 * Lt. Doyle: Jeff, you've got a lot to learn about homicide. Why, morons have committed murder so shrewdly it's taken a hundred trained police minds to catch them. That salesman wouldn't just knock his wife off after dinner and toss her in the trunk and put her in storage.
 * Jeff: I'll bet it's been done.
 * Lt. Doyle: Most everything's been done - under panic. This is a thousand to one shot. He's still sitting around the apartment. That man's not panicked.
 * Jeff: You think I made all this up, huh?

 * Lisa: It doesn't make sense to me...Women aren't that unpredictable...A woman has a favorite handbag and it always hangs on her bedpost where she can get at it easily. And then all of a sudden, she goes away on a trip and leaves it behind. Why?
 * Jeff: Because she didn't know she was going on a trip. And where she's going she wouldn't need the handbag.
 * Lisa: Yes, but only her husband would know that. And that jewelry. Women don't keep their jewelry in a purse, getting all twisted and scratched and tangled up.
 * Jeff: Well, do they hide it in their husbands' clothes?
 * Lisa: They do not. And they don't leave it behind either. Why, a woman going anywhere but the hospital would always take makeup, perfume, and jewelry...That's basic equipment. And you don't leave it behind in your husband's drawer in your favorite handbag.

 * Lisa: [Listening to the composer play his piano] Where does a man get inspiration to write a song like that? It's utterly beautiful. Wish I could be creative.
 * Jeff: Oh sweetie, you are. You have a great talent for creating difficult situations.
 * Lisa: I do?
 * Jeff: Sure. Staying here all night, uninvited.
 * Lisa: Surprise is the most important element of attack. And besides, you're not up on your private eye literature. When they're in trouble, it's always their Girl Friday who gets them out of it.
 * Jeff: Well, is she the girl that saves him from the clutches of the seductive showgirls and the overpassionate daughters of the rich?
 * Lisa: The same.
 * Jeff: That's the one, huh? It's funny, he never ends up marrying her, does he, huh? That's strange.
 * Lisa: Weird.

 * Lt. Doyle: Lars Thorwald is no more a murderer than I am.
 * Jeff: You mean to say you can explain everything that's gone on over there and is still going on?
 * Lt. Doyle: No, and neither can you. That's a secret, private world you're looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private that they couldn't possibly explain in public.
 * Lisa: Like disposing of their wives.
 * Lt. Doyle: Get that idea out of your mind. It will only lead in the wrong direction.
 * Jeff: What about the knife and the saw?
 * Lt. Doyle: Did you ever own a saw?
 * Jeff: At home in the garage, I had...
 * Lt. Doyle: How many people did you cut up with it? Or with the couple of hundred knives you probably owned in your life? Your logic is backward.
 * Lisa: You can't ignore the wife disappearing and the trunk and the jewelry.
 * Lt. Doyle: I checked the railroad station. He bought a ticket. Ten minutes later, he put his wife on the train. Destination? Meritsville. The witnesses are that deep.
 * Lisa: That might have been a woman, but it couldn't have been Mrs. Thorwald. That jewelry...
 * Lt. Doyle: Look, Miss Fremont. That uh, feminine intuition stuff sells magazines but in real life, it's still a fairy tale. I don't know how many wasted years I've spent tracking down leads based on female intuition.
 * Lt. Doyle: [looking at Lisa's open overnight bag] Do you tell your landlord everything?
 * Jeff: I told you to be careful, Tom.
 * Lt. Doyle: If I'd have been careful piloting that reconnaissance plane during the war, you wouldn't have had the chance to take the pictures that won you a medal and a good job and fame and money.
 * Lt. Doyle: If I'd have been careful piloting that reconnaissance plane during the war, you wouldn't have had the chance to take the pictures that won you a medal and a good job and fame and money.

 * Jeff: You know, much as I hate to give Thomas J. Doyle too much credit, he might have gotten ahold of something when he said that was pretty private stuff going on out there. I wonder if it is ethical to watch a man with binoculars and a long-focus lens. Do you, do you suppose it's ethical even if you prove that he didn't commit a crime?
 * Lisa: I'm not much on rear-window ethics.
 * Jeff: Of course, they can do the same thing to me. Watch me like a bug under a glass if they want to.
 * Lisa: Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see.
 * Jeff: What?
 * Lisa: You and me with long faces, plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known. You'd think we could be a little bit happier that the poor woman is alive and well. Whatever happened to that old saying: 'Love thy neighbor'?
 * Jeff: You know, I think I'll start reviving that tomorrow. I'll begin with 'Miss Torso.'
 * Lisa: Not if I have to move in to an apartment across the way and do the Dance of the Seven Veils every hour. [She lowers the blinds] The show's over for tonight. [She picks up her overnight kit of lingerie] Preview of coming attractions.

 * Lisa: What's he doing? Cleaning house?
 * Jeff: He's washing and scrubbing down the bathroom walls.
 * Stella: Must've splattered a lot.
 * [both Jeff and Lisa look at Stella with disgust]
 * Stella: Come on, that's what were all thinkin'. He killed her in there, now he has to clean up those stains before he leaves.
 * Lisa: Stella... your choice of words!
 * Stella: Nobody ever invented a polite word for a killin' yet.

 * Lisa: The last thing Mrs. Thorwald would leave behind would be her wedding ring. Stella, do you ever leave yours at home?
 * Stella: The only way somebody would get that would be to chop off my - finger. Let's go down to the garden and find out what's buried there.
 * Lisa: Why not? I always wanted to meet Mrs. Thorwald.

 * Thorwald: [entering Jeff's apartment] What do you want from me? Your friend, the girl, could have turned me in. Why didn't she? What is it you want? A lot of money? I don't have any money. Say something. Say something. Tell me what you want! Can you get me that ring back?
 * Jeff: No!
 * Thorwald: Tell her to bring it back.
 * Jeff: I can't. The police have it by now.

Taglines

 * Suspense of screaming proportions!
 * See It! - If your nerves can stand it after Psycho!
 * The most unusual and intimate journey into human emotions ever filmed !
 * It only takes one witness to spoil the perfect crime.
 * Seeing isn't always believing.
 * In deadly danger...Because they saw too much!

Cast

 * Jimmy Stewart - L. B. Jefferies
 * Grace Kelly - Lisa Carol Fremont
 * Wendell Corey - Det. Lt. Thomas J. Doyle
 * Thelma Ritter - Stella
 * Raymond Burr - Lars Thorwald
 * Judith Evelyn - Miss Lonelyheart
 * Ross Bagdasarian Sr. - Songwriter
 * Georgine Darcy - Miss Torso
 * Sara Berner - Wife living above Thorwalds
 * Frank Cady - Husband living above Thorwalds

title: Rear Window


text:
José Raúl Capablanca

José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (November 19, 1888 – March 8, 1942) was a Cuban world-class chess master in the early to mid-twentieth century. He was world chess champion between 1921 and 1927.

Quotes

 * In order to improve your game you must study the endgame before anything else; for, whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middlegame and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame.
 * Capablanca's Last Chess lectures (1966), p. 23

 * I am always reminded of the case of a noted American journalist, an excellent fellow, well educated, and, at the time I have in mind, chess champion of the state in which he resided. My friend devoted a great deal of time and energy to the study of the openings. Whenever I passed through his city he always came to the station for me and put me up at his house. We would have frequent con- versations during which he would ask me about this or that variation; to his great surprise I would almost always answer, "I don't know it" Then he would say: "What will you do when somebody plays it against you?" And I would reply, "Ninety percent of the book variations have no great value, because either they contain mistakes or they are based on fallacious assumptions; just forget about the openings and spend all that time on the endings. In the long run you will get much better results that way."
 * Capablanca's Last Chess lectures (1966), p. 24

 * Morphy's principal strength does not rest upon his power of combination but in his position play and his general style....Beginning with la Bourdonnais to the present, and including Lasker, we find that the greatest stylist has been Morphy. Whence the reason, although it might not be the only one, why he is generally considered the greatest of all.
 * In Pablo Morphy by V. F. Coria and L. Palau.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: José Raúl Capablanca


text:
User talk:SilhouetteSaloon

Thanks for your help on Memento, and your attention to details. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 15:08, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:SilhouetteSaloon


text:
Ian Paisley

The Reverend Ian Richard Kyle Paisley (born April 6, 1926 - September 12, 2014) was a politician and church leader in Northern Ireland.

1970s

 * I say to the Dublin government, Mr Faulkner says it's "hands across the border to Dublin". I say, if they don't behave themselves in the South, it will be shots across the border!
 * In response to Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner's signing of the Sunningdale Agreement with the Republic of Ireland in 1974 []

1980s

 * Don't come crying to me if your homes are attacked. You will reap what you sow.
 * After been forcibly carried out from the Assembly building by police (1986)[]

 * We're on the verge of civil war in Northern Ireland. Why? Because if you take away the forums of democracy you don't have anything left.
 * After been forcibly carried out from the Assembly building by police (1986)[]

 * "I have read in the Book of Revelation the power of the word of testimony, but I never realised what power was in a martyr's testimony. If I had brought a ton of explosives and let them off in that Assembly it could not have had a greater effect. That vast Assembly erupted, and the books started to fly and the punches started to be thrown, and the kicking started, but I held my ground and maintained my testimony. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EUROPE TODAY AND EUROPE IN REFORMATION TIMES. This afternoon I read again the story of Luther, at the Diet of Worms. Who presided over the Diet of Worms? The Emperor Charles, Head of the Holy Roman Empire. Who was he? He was a Habsburg. It is interesting to note that one of the men who attacked me is the last of the Habsburgs-Otto Habsburg, the Pretender to the Crown of Austria and Hungary. I said to myself, 'The Habsburgs are still lusting for Protestant blood. They are still the same as they were in the days of Luther.' The members of the Roman Catholic Party of Mr. Le Pen of which John Taylor is a member were round me battering away at me as hard as they could"
 * None Dare Call Him Antichrist Sermon, Martyrs' Memorial Free Presbyterian Church, October 16, 1988.

1990s

 * "Never confuse sitting on your side with being on your side."
 * To Jeremy Hanley, who had introduced himself to Paisley saying "How do you do? I did not realise that you were on our side."[]

 * I was born in the island of Ireland. I have Irish traits in me - we don't all have the traits of what came from Scotland, there is the celtic factor... and I am an Irishman because you cannot be an Ulsterman without being an Irishman.
 * Cited by Feargal Cochrane in "The Unionists of Ulster: An ideological Analysis" CAIN Web Service, from James Loughlin, Ulster Unionism and British National Identity Since 1885 London and New York: Pinter, 1995, p. 217. (The original quote is undated in the immediate source)

2000s

 * "There's a silence in this house today. There's a silence all over Northern Ireland today.  There's grieving and there is despair.  But behind the despair, there is being born a unity that we haven't seen before... I would like to commend publicly here today the priest of Antrim, the Roman Catholic priest.  He made one of the greatest speeches I've ever heard from any of the cloth and he really said in Down to everyone that he did not want in his parish anybody like these men who did this task.  And those of us who know Northern Ireland know that it takes some show of strength in a place like Antrim to say those words... We're coming up to St. Patrick's Day.  St. Patrick preached the gospel of Jesus Christ in Ireland.  And I was just thinking today, the only thing these murderers have done: they have desecrated the shamrock by trying to pour the blood of their innocent victims upon it."
 * Speaking in the House of Commons after the shooting dead of two unarmed British soldiers outside Massereene Barracks in March 2009.[]

title: Ian Paisley


text:
User talk:The stuart

Thanks for The Demented Cartoon Movie. I have added an introductory note, with link to wikipedia, as is the common style here. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 15:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:The stuart


text:
Hannah Flagg Gould

Hannah Flagg Gould (September 3, 1789 – September 5 1865) was a poet, born in Lancaster, Massachusetts. Flagg began writing poetry in her Thirties.

Quotes

 * Alone I walked on the ocean strand, A pearly shell was in my hand; I stooped, and wrote upon the sand My name, the year, the day. As onward from the sport I passed, One lingering look behind I cast, A wave came rolling high and fast, And washed my lines away.
 * "A Name In the Sand"

 * Wisdom, Power and Goodness meet In the bounteous field of wheat.
 * "The Wheatfield"

 * Come out — pretty Rose-Bud, — my lone, timid one! Come forth from thy green leaves, and peep at the sun! For little he does, in these dull autumn hours, At height'ning of beauty, or laughing with flowers.
 * "The Rose-Bud of Autumn" in The Youth's Coronal (published 1850).

 * I am feeble, pale and weary, And my wings are nearly furled; I have caused a scene so dreary, I am glad to quit the world! With bitterness I'm thinking On the evil I have done, And to my caverns sinking From the coming of the sun.
 * "The Dying Storm" in Poems (published 1835), p. 59.

The Frost

 * The Frost looked forth one still, clear night, And he said, "Now I shall be out of sight; So through the valley and over the height In silence I'll take my way."
 * Cited by Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

title: Hannah Flagg Gould


text:
User talk:Sharkpedal

--Aphaia 18:58, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sharkpedal


text:
Al Franken

Alan Stuart "Al" Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American writer, actor and politician. He was the junior United States Senator from Minnesota from 2008 to 2018, when he resigned following sexual harassment allegations from several women. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party. Franken achieved note as a writer and performer for the television show Saturday Night Live from its conception in 1975 before moving to writing and acting in films and television shows. He then became a political commentator, author of five books and host of a nationally syndicated radio show on the Air America Radio network.

Quotes

 * Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
 * Oh, the Things I Know (2002)

 * When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both.
 * Oh, the Things I Know (2002)

 * The biases the media has are much bigger than conservative or liberal. They're about getting ratings, about making money, about doing stories that are easy to cover.
 * Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them (2003)

That's why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well.'''
 * If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they'll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America. ... They don't get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow. '''Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.
 * Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (2003)

 * What I do is taking what they say and using it against them. What I do is jujitsu.
 * Al Franken: God Spoke (2006)

If you control the flow of information, you can control the conversation around important issues. If you can control the conversation, you can change this country. … But we can’t be satisfied with stopping conservatives and their corporate clients from controlling the narrative when it comes to our legal system. We have to fight back with our own. In our narrative, the legal system doesn’t exist to help the powerful grow more powerful – it exists to guarantee that every American is entitled to justice In our narrative, we defend our individual rights and liberties against corporate encroachment just as fiercely as we defend them against government overreach.
 * Some of the same people who were instrumental in the Federalist Society’s effort to change our legal system are now working to help corporations increase their control over the flow of information.
 * Speech to the Eighth Annual American Constitution Society National Convention (17 June 2010)

 * Net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time. Today, a blog can load as fast as the Wall Street Journal — and, if the blog is good, it can get more traffic than any media conglomerate. But if bigger companies can pay for faster, priority Internet access, that blogger no longer has a shot. And these big companies know that when they pay for access, they win. They want preferred treatment on the Internet like the preferred treatment they get in the rest of their lives.
 * "Sen. Franken's Speech to Free Press Group in Minneapolis" (19 August 2010)

 * I've said that net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. It's true. If Republicans have their way, large corporations won't just have the loudest voices in the room. They'll be able to effectively silence everyone else. Every small business they'd prefer not to compete with. Every blogger who publishes something they don't like. We have to stop them.
 * "Net Neutrality Is Under Attack... Again" in The Huffington Post (8 November 2011)

 * The crash of 2008 was driven in no small part by unfair practices in the mortgage industry, which led to many consumers becoming trapped in loans they didn’t understand and couldn’t afford.
 * Sen. Franken Speaks on Senate Floor in Support of Richard Cordray to Head Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (7 December 2011);

 * Our laws need to reflect the evolution of technology and the changing expectations of American society. This is why the Constitution is often called a “living” document. But we have a long way to go to get our modern privacy laws in line with modern technology.
 * "Privacy and Civil Liberties in the Digital Age" in WIRED (2 March 2012)

 * In the United States of America, satire is protected speech, even if the object of the satire doesn’t get it.
 * As quoted in "The Trump Era Is Al Franken’s Time to Shine" by Graham Vyse, in New Republic (2 February 2017)

 * The first thing I want to do is apologize: to Leeann, to everyone else who was part of that tour, to everyone who has worked for me, to everyone I represent, and to everyone who counts on me to be an ally and supporter and champion of women. There's more I want to say, but the first and most important thing—and if it's the only thing you care to hear, that's fine—is: I'm sorry. I respect women. I don't respect men who don't. And the fact that my own actions have given people a good reason to doubt that makes me feel ashamed. But I want to say something else, too. Over the last few months, all of us—including and especially men who respect women—have been forced to take a good, hard look at our own actions and think (perhaps, shamefully, for the first time) about how those actions have affected women. For instance, that picture [when Franken appears to grope the breasts of a sleeping Leeann Tweeden, while simultaneously smiling towards the photographer] I don't know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn't matter. There's no excuse. I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself. It isn't funny. It's completely inappropriate. It's obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture. And, what's more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated by it—women who have had similar experiences in their own lives, women who fear having those experiences, women who look up to me, women who have counted on me.
 * November 2017 statement in response to allegations of sexual harassment and groping made by Leeann Tweeden against Franken.

Quotes about Franken

 * Franken didn’t apologize — in fact, he cast doubt on his accusers — and the only regret he expressed was for “having to walk away from this job.” But after a political career premised on exposing the depravity of Republicans, Franken himself stood exposed. For years, he had built his brand on always being in the right. Even as he relinquished his Senate seat, he couldn’t let go of his sense of moral superiority.
 * Molly Ball (Dec 9, 2017), on Franken's resignation from the Senate following allegations of sexual harassment or assault from several women, Al Franken Is Not Sorry, Time.com

 * The election process and recount in Minnesota have lived up to the state's reputation for organization, transparency, and bipartisanship. The officials have been meticulous and every ruling has been unanimous. While Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of the hardest working members of the United States Senate, Minnesotans deserve their full representation. Once the Minnesota Supreme Court has issued its final ruling in this case, the President and I look forward to working with Mr. Franken on building an economy for the 21st century.
 * U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in Vice President Biden Issues Statement Following Meeting with Al Franken, The White House, Office of the Vice President (6 May 2009)

 * He was between me and the door, and he was coming at me to kiss me. It was very quick, and I think my brain had to work really hard to be like ‘Wait, what is happening?’ But I knew whatever was happening was not right, and I ducked,” the former aide said in an interview. “I was really startled by it, and I just sort of booked it towards the door, and he said, ‘It’s my right as an entertainer.’
 * Heather Caygle (December 6, 2017), quoting a woman who worked with Franken and alleged he sexually harrassed her in 2006; Another woman says Franken tried to forcibly kiss her, Politico.com

 * I consider myself to be an old-fashioned liberal. I'm a liberal the way liberals used to be when they were like John F. Kennedy and when they were like Hubert Humphrey. When they were upbeat and enthusiastic and mainstream. I am not a liberal the way liberals are today at least as exemplified by Al Franken and Michael Moore, where they're angry, nasty, closed minded, and not mainstream, but fringe.
 * Bernard Goldberg, The Bernard Goldberg Interview RightWingNews.com John Hawkins, 2001. Today's 'Liberals': Close-Minded, Nasty and Fringe Newsmax.com. Bernard Goldberg (October 16, 2003)

 * 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37)
 * Bernard Goldberg, 2005 book title, Harper ISBN 0060761288

 * Al Franken is ready for this job. It is time to get to work, and, Al Franken, there is a desk waiting for you in the Senate.
 * U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, in "Senator-Elect Al Franken" (7 July 2009);

 * I offered Al Franken $50,000 if within one year he could get one percent of the audience in a major market. One percent. A 1.0 share, I offered him $50,000. He didn't even have to bet me. I just offered a straight-cash payout. [...] These [hosts on AirAmerica] are amateurs. [...] Al Franken has no experience in the broadcasting business. None. [...] And he has no business being on the air. At all.
 * Tom Leykis, talk radio host, April 14, 2004; after Franken's AirAmerica talk show was pulled off the air in Los Angeles and Chicago (the second and third largest US radio markets, respectively) after less than two weeks due to AirAmerica's failure to pay outstanding bills to radio stations. Citing "Liberal radio stations silenced", The Chicago Tribune, 2004-04-14

 * MCEVERS: So Leeann Tweeden talked about this today. She even released a picture where Al Franken appears to be placing his hands over her breasts. We should say she's asleep in the photo. She's wearing a Kevlar vest and a helmet. And Al Franken is smiling toward the camera in the shot. GONYEA: He's kind of mugging for the camera. And that moment you describe there, she didn't even know about it until she got home from the trip and started looking through the pictures that the official photographer had taken. And he gave her and others a disc. So that humiliated her and embarrassed her, she said. But it followed another problem with Franken on the same tour. He'd written a comedy sketch for them to do in front of the troops. She talked about it on KABC radio this morning on the show that she works on. She says Franken wanted to rehearse a kiss that he had written into the script for them. She said no. He kept insisting. She said no again. He insisted more. Finally she said OK.
 * Don Gonyea and Kelly McEvers, Minnesota Sen. Al Franken Faces Sexual Assault Allegations From LA Radio Host, All Things Considered, NPR.org; Nov 16, 2017

 * I know this photo looks bad, but remember: it also is bad. And sure, this was taken before Franken ran for public office, but this was also taken after he was a sophomore in high school.
 * Colin Jost, Weekend Update in reaction to Leeann Tweden's release of a photo wherein Franken appears to be groping her breasts while she was asleep.

 * The most hypocritical thing I've ever seen done to a human being, and then they have enough guts to sit on the floor, watch him give his speech, and go over and hug him? That's hypocrisy at the highest level I've ever seen in my life.
 * U.S. Senator Joe Manchin on Senate Democrats who called for Franken's resignation, in "What if Al Franken unresigns?" in The Week (20 December 2017)

 * I look forward to working with Senator-elect Franken to build a new foundation for growth and prosperity by lowering health care costs and investing in the kind of clean energy jobs and industries that will help America lead in the 21st century.
 * U.S. President Barack Obama (30 June 2009). Statement on Senator-Elect Al Franken's Certification as Winner of the 2008 Minnesota Senatorial Race. The White House.

 * When I saw the script [Franken had written for a 2006 USO performance], Franken had written a moment when his character comes at me for a ‘kiss’. I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute, or put my hand over his mouth, to get more laughs from the crowd. On the day of the show Franken and I were alone backstage going over our lines one last time. He said to me, “We need to rehearse the kiss.” I laughed and ignored him. Then he said it again. I said something like, ‘Relax Al, this isn’t SNL…we don’t need to rehearse the kiss.’ He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth. I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time. I walked away. All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth. I felt disgusted and violated. Not long after, I performed the skit as written, carefully turning my head so he couldn’t kiss me on the lips. He continued to insist, and I was beginning to get uncomfortable.
 * Leeann Tweeden (Nov 16, 2017). Al Franken Kissed and Groped Me Without My Consent, And There’s Nothing Funny About It, KABC.com

 * No one saw what happened backstage. I didn’t tell the Sergeant Major of the Army, who was the sponsor of the tour. I didn’t tell our USO rep what happened. At the time I didn’t want to cause trouble. We were in the middle of a war zone, it was the first show of our Holiday tour, I was a professional, and I could take care of myself. I told a few of the others on the tour what Franken had done and they knew how I felt about it. I tried to let it go, but I was angry. Other than our dialogue on stage, I never had a voluntary conversation with Al Franken again. I avoided him as much as possible and made sure I was never alone with him again for the rest of the tour. Franken repaid me with petty insults, including drawing devil horns on at least one of the headshots I was autographing for the troops. But he didn’t stop there. The tour wrapped and on Christmas Eve we began the 36-hour trip home to L.A. After 2 weeks of grueling travel and performing I was exhausted. When our C-17 cargo plane took off from Afghanistan I immediately fell asleep, even though I was still wearing my flak vest and Kevlar helmet. It wasn’t until I was back in the US and looking through the CD of photos we were given by the photographer that I saw this one: I couldn’t believe it. He groped me, without my consent, while I was asleep. I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated. How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?
 * Leeann Tweeden (Nov 16, 2017). Al Franken Kissed and Groped Me Without My Consent, And There’s Nothing Funny About It, KABC.com

 * They spent so much money in his first campaign making him look like a buffoon ... You're with him for five minutes and you see that's not true.
 * , in "Al Franken takes Senate job seriously (he's still funny in private)" in The Los Angeles Times (2 September 2014)

 * Senator Franken made the right choice to step down. I applaud him and thank him.  He is right that we are having an important conversation right now about the equal treatment of women in every part of our society. We have a long way to go in combatting these problems, but holding everyone to a high standard—including public servants—is an important step down that road.
 * Sheldon Whitehouse (Dec 7, 2017), Rhode Island Senator, in response to Franken's resignation after sexual harassment and assault allegations against Franken.

title: Al Franken


text:
Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917), was a French painter, print-maker and sculptor. He was moreover an active organizer of several Impressionist exhibitions, but never painted 'plain air' himself.

Quotes of Edgar Degas

 * sorted chronologically, by date of the quotes of Edgar Degas The Collector of Prints MET DT1920.jpg, New York City]]

1855 - 1875

 * I am busy on a portrait of my self and my aunt and my two cousins, I will show it to you when you get back. I am doing it as if I were doing a picture. I've got to do it well, because I want to leave it as a memento.... The older one is really a lovely thing, the younger one has the devil in her as well as the kindness of an angel. I am doing them with their black dresses and little white pinafores which suit them delightfully. I have ideas for the picture's background running through my head. I would like a certain gracefulness with a nobleness of feeling that I don't know how to describe.
 * Quote in a letter (27 November, 1858) to Degas' friend and painter Gustave Moreau; as quoted in More unpublished Letters of Degas, Theodore Reff, Art Bulletin LI, No. 3., Sept. 1969, pp. 282-283

 * Boredom soon overcomes me when I am contemplating nature.
 * Notebook entry (1858), The Notebooks of Edgar Degas, ed. Theodore Reff (1976)

 * It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious — to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality — he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market.  All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.
 * Quote from Degas' Notebook entry c. 1860's; as quoted in Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century, ed. Robert Goldwater (Pantheon, 1945)

 * Make portraits of people in familiar and typical positions, above all give their faces the same choice of expression one gives their bodies. Thus if laughter is typical for a person, make him laugh – there are, naturally, feelings that one cannot render…
 * Quote from Degas' Notebook of 1869; as quoted in Impressionism and Post Impressionism 1874 – 1904, 'Sources and Documents', Linda Nochlin, Englewood Cliffs, New Yersey, 1966, p. 62

 * villas with columns in different styles [in Louisiana, America] painted white, in gardens of magnolias, orange trees, banana trees, negroes in old clothes like characters from La Belle Jardiniere.. ..rosy white children in black [negro] arms.. ..a brilliant light which streams my eyes..  ..the Negresses of all shades, holding in their arms little white babies, so white, against white houses with columns of fluted wood and in gardens of orange trees. [quote on his journey through America during 1872]
 * Quote from his letter, Louisiana, America 1872; as cited in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 113-114

 * ladies in muslin draped on porches at the fronts of their little houses.. ..shops bursting with fruit, and the contrast between the lively hum and the bustle of the offices with the immense black animal force..  .The black world I have not the time to explore; there are some real gifts of colour and drawing in these forests of ebony. It will seem amazing to live among white people when I get back to Paris. I love silhouettes so much, and these silhouettes walk. [quote on his journey through America during 1872]
 * Quote in Degas' letter to his friend Tissot, Louisiana, America 1872; as cited in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 113-114

 * We also consider that Miss Berthe Morisot's [woman painter in French Impressionism who got later married with a brother of Eduard Manet] name and talent are too important to us to do without. [Degas is referring to her participation in the first Impressionist's show he was preparing, then; he was in strong opposition to Eduard Manet who wanted to exclude Berthe Morisot)
 * Quote from Degas' letter to Cornelie Morisot (mother of Berthe Morisot), Spring 1873; as cited in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 119

 * J'ai vraiment, un vrai bagage dans la tête. S'il y avait pour cela, comme il y a partout ici, des compagnies d'assurance, voilà un ballot je ferais assurer de suite.
 * I really have some luggage in my head. If only there were insurance companies for that as there are for so many things here, there's a bale I should insure at once.
 * Quote from a letter to James Tissot, (New Orleans, 1873), as cited in Marilyn Brown, Degas and the Business of Art: A Cotton Office in New Orleans (Penn State Press, 1994)

 * In the office there are about fifteen people whose attention is directed toward a table covered with the costly fabric [raw cotton]; one man is bent over the table and another is sort of seating on it – the buyer and the broker are discussing a sample. A painting of a vernacular subject, if there is such a thing, and I think by a better hand than most others (a size 40 canvas, I think). I'm planning another less complicated and more surprising yet, better art, in which everyone is in summer dress, the walls white, and a sea of cotton on the tables. (translation based on M. Kay's, in M. Gérin [ed.] and M. Kay, transl. 'Degas letters', Oxford, 1947, pp. 29-30, no. 2
 * Quote in Gegas letter to his friend James Tissot, New Orleans, 18 February 1873; as quoted in 'Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition', Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, p. 99
 * Degas is referring to his painting 'Cotton Merchants in New Orleans' [Cotton Merchants in New Orleans, (1873)

 * I put it [a still life of a pear, made by Manet there [on the wall, next to Ingres' painting 'Jupiter'], for a pear like that would overthrow any god.
 * remark in a conversation with the writer Moore, ca. 1875; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 117

1876 - 1895

 * Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.
 * Quote in a letter of Degas to Jean-Baptiste Faure, 14 March 1877

 * He [ Corot ] is always the strongest, he has foreseen everything.
 * Degas in 1883, as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 2
 * Degas made this remark about Corot to Pissarro at the preview exhibition of the 'Jules Paton sale' in Paris, 24 April 1883 and overheard by Corot's biographer Alfred Robaut.

 * It is all well and good to copy what one sees, but it is much better to draw only what remains in one's memory. This is a transformation in which imagination and memory collaborate.
 * Quote of Degas in 1883, as cited by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 30 note 10
 * Degas confided this to Pierre-George Jeanniot

 * I always urged my contemporaries to look for interest and inspiration to the development and study of drawing, but they would not listen. They thought the road to salvation lay by the way of colour.
 * Quote of Degas, as cited by Walter Sickert, in 'Post-Impressionism and Cubism', Pall Mall Gazette (1914-03-11).
 * According to Sickert, Degas had said this quote to him in 1885

 * Apart from my heart, I feel everything grows old in me. Even my heart has something artificial. It has been sewn by the dancers in a soft, pink satin purse like their shoes.
 * Quote in Degas' letter to the sculptor Paul-Albert Bartolomé, January 1886; as cited in 'Performing Fine Arts: Dance as a Source of Inspiration in Impressionism, by Johannis Tsoumas

 * I believe Corot painted a tree better that any of us, but still I find him superior in his figures.
 * Degas in 1883, as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 4
 * note 5: 20 June 1887, - Corot’s biographer Alfred Robaut told this story (1905. Vol. 1. P. 336)

 * An artist is a deception.. ..an artist is only an artist at certain times, by an effort of will..  ..the study of nature is a cliché; isn't Manet the living proof? For although he prided himself on slavishly copying nature, he was the most inadequate painter in the world, not making a single brushstroke without reference to the old masters; for instance, he refrained from drawing fingernails because Frans Hals did not draw them.
 * Quote of Degas, in his talk with the visiting Mallarmé, 1880's; as cited in Berthe Morisot, the first lady of Impressionism, by Margaret Sehnan; Sutton Publishing (ISBN 0 7509 2339 3), 1996, p. 234

 * À vous il faut la vie naturelle, à moi la vie factice.
 * You need the natural life; I, the artificial.
 * Degas, quoted by George Moore, Impressions and Opinions (1891)
 * These words were spoken, Moore states, to 'a landscape painter'

 * I assure you no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament — temperament is the word — I know nothing.
 * Quote of Degas in conversation with George Moore, later quoted by Moore in Impressions and Opinions (1891)

 * Hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses which presuppose an audience; but these women of mine are honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. Here is another; she is washing her feet. It is as if you looked through a key-hole.
 * Quoted by George Moore, in Impressions and Opinions (1891)

 * What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.
 * Quoted in Degas' letter to Daniel Halévy, 31 Jan 1892, from Degas Letters, ed. Marcel Guerin, trans. Marguerite Kay (1947)

1896 - 1917

 * You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.
 * a remark to E. Rouart [son of Henri Rouart in 1904; as quoted in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 274

 * Comme nous avons mal fait de nous laisser appeler Impressionistes.
 * What a pity we allowed ourselves to be called Impressionists.
 * Quoted by Walter Sickert in 'Post-Impressionists,' Fortnightly Review (January 1911)

'Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)
'Quotes from: Degas: An Intimate Portrait'' (1927) - A memoir by Ambroise Vollard, translated by Randolph T. Weaver. Dover, 1986, ISBN 0-486-25131-4'''

 * Certainly, Vollard, but listen: will you have a special dish without butter prepared for me? Mind you, no flowers on the table, and you must have dinner at half past seven sharp. I know you won't have your cat around and please don't allow anybody to bring a dog. And if there are to be any women I hope they won't come reeking of perfume. How horrible all those odors are when there are so many things that really smell good, like toast - or even manure! Ah - (a short hesitation), and very few lights. My eyes, you know, my poor eyes!
 * "Early Encounters" (p. 20)
 * Quoted by Vollard who came to invite Degas for dinner, that evening

 * Vollard, please do not say anything against fashions. Have you ever asked yourself what would happen if there were no fashions? How would women spent their time? What would they have to talk about? Life would become unbearable for us men. Why, if women were to break away from the rules of fashion - fortunately there is no danger - the government would have to step in and take a hand.
 * "Early Encounters" (p. 26)

 * I remember a story my father used to tell. As he was coming home one day, he ran across a group of men who were firing on the troops from an ambush. During the excitement a daring onlooker went up to one of the snipers who seemed to be a poor marksman. He took the man's gun and brought down a soldier, then handed it back to its owner who motioned as if to say, 'No, go on. You're a better shot than I am.' But the stranger said, 'No, I'm not interested in politics.'
 * (p. 40)
 * Vollard, Degas and others were talking about the revolution of 1847. Somebody remarked to Degas that he must have been quite young at that time. Than Degas start to quote his father.

 * I have been singularly hard with myself. I have had to be. You must realize that this is so, since you have, at times, reproached me for it, and were astonished because I had so little confidence in myself. I have been, or seemed, hard with everyone because I was carried away by a sort of brutality born of my distrust in myself and my ill-humor. I have felt so badly equipped, so soft, in spite of the fact that my attitude towards art seemed to me so just. I was disgusted with everyone, and especially myself. I ask your pardon, then, if, with this damned art as an excuse, I have wounded your noble and intelligent spirit; perhaps even your heart..
 * "The Sensitive Artist" (p. 43)
 * quote from Degas' letter to a friend; but unknown because Vollard did not want to reveal the name

 * Visitor: Monsieur Degas, were there any of Monet's pictures at the Durand-Ruel exhibition? Degas: Why, I met Monet himself there, and I said to him, 'Let me get out of here. Those reflections in the water hurt my eyes!' His pictures were always too draughty for me. If it had been any worse I should have had to turn up my coat collar.
 * "The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 46)

 * Another Visitor: How did you manage, Monsieur Degas, when you painted that plein air called 'Le Plage', the one Monsieur Rouart has? Degas: It was quite simple. I spread my flannel vest on the floor of the studio, and had the model sit on it. You see, the air you breathe in a picture is not necessarily the same as the air out of doors.
 * "The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 47)

 * Poor Gauguin, 'way off there on his island! I'll wager he spends most of his time thinking of Rue Lafitte. I advised him to go to New Orleans, but he decided it was too civilized. He had to have people around him with flowers on their heads and rings in their noses before he could feel at home. Now if I should leave my house for more than two days...
 * "The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 48)

 * She [ Mary Cassatt ] has infinite talent. I remember the time we started a little magazine called 'Le Jour et La Nuit' together. I was very much interested in processes then, and had made countless experiments [in printing; Degas mainly monotype - Cassatt mainly etchings].. ..You can get extraordinary results with copper; but the trouble is that there are never enough buyers to encourage you to go on with it.
 * "The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 48)
 * Degas's remark, when he visited one day the art-shop of Vollard and looked at a print of Mary Cassatt.

 * If I were the government I would have a special brigade of gendarmes to keep an eye on artists who paint landscapes from nature. Oh, I don't mean to kill anyone; just a little dose of bird-shot now and then as a warning.
 * "Some of Degas' Views on Art" (p. 56)
 * Degas hated to paint outdoor and even to see landscape-paintings, like for instance the 'draughty' ones of Monet

 * I, marry? Oh, I could never bring myself to do it. I would have been in mortal misery all my life for fear my wife might say, "That's a pretty little thing," after I had finished a picture.
 * "Methods of Work" (p. 64)

 * I'm glad to say I haven't found my style yet. I'd be bored to death.
 * "Technical Details" (p. 70)

 * People call me the painter of dancing girls. It has never occurred to them that my chief interest in dancers lies in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes.
 * "As He Grows Old" (p. 87)

'Degas Dance Drawing' (1935)
'Quotes from: Degas Danse Dessin'' by Paul Valéry, trans. David Paul; Princeton University Press, 1989, ISBN 0-691-01882-0'''

 * Il faut avoir une haute idée, non pas de ce qu'on fait, mais de ce qu'on pourra faire un jour; sans quoi ce n'est pas la peine de travailler.
 * You have to have a high conception, not of what you are doing, but of what you may do one day: without that, there's no point in working.
 * "Mad About Drawing" (p. 64)

 * Le dessin n'est pas la forme, il est la manière de voir la forme.
 * Drawing is not the same as form; it is a way of seeing form.
 * "Drawing Is Not the Same As Form..." (p. 82)

 * A man is an artist only at certain moments, by an effort of will. Objects have the same appearance for everybody.
 * "Recollections of Degas by Berthe Morisot" (p. 84)

 * The study of nature is of no significance, for painting is a conventional art, and it is infinitely more worthwhile to learn to draw after Holbein.
 * Quote from History of Impressionism, Rev. ed. John Rewald, Museum of Modern Art, 1961, p. 89

'The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas', (1961)
'Quotes from: The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas'', R. H. Ives Gammell, ed. University Press, Boston, 1961'''

 * The museums are here to teach the history of art and something more as well, for, if they stimulate in the weak a desire to imitate, they furnish the strong with the means of their emancipation.

 * A picture is a thing which requires as much knavery, as much malice, and as much vice as the perpetration of a crime. Make it untrue and add an accent of truth.

 * Art is vice. You don't marry it legitimately, you rape it.

 * Even working from nature you have to compose.

 * Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see.

 * Make a drawing. Start it all over again, trace it. Start it and trace it again.

 * You must do over the same subject ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must appear accidental, even a movement.

 * Work a great deal at evening effects, lamplight, candlelight, etc. The intriguing thing is not to show the source of the light but the effect of the lighting.

 * Painting is not very difficult when you don't know how; but when you know, oh! then, it's another matter.

 * It requires courage to make a frontal attack on nature through the broad planes and the large lines and it is cowardly to do it by the facets and details. It is a battle.

 * Everybody has talent at twenty-five. The difficult thing is to have it at fifty.

quotes, undated

 * Je n'admets pas qu'une femme puisse dessiner comme ca.
 * I will not admit that a woman can draw like that.
 * Quoted in Forbes Watson, Mary Cassatt (1932)
 * this quote is referring to some etchings by Cassatt, which Degas admired

 * A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.
 * quote from Georges Jeanniot, in Souvenirs sur Degas (Memories of Degas, 1933)

 * In our beginnings, Fantin, Whistler and I were all on the same road, the road from Holland [Dutch 17th century painters]
 * Quote of Degas, later recalled by Paul Poujaud (written in his letter to Marcel Guérin, 11 July 1936); as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 54
 * Degas is recalling his early works of the 1860's

 * Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.
 * Quoted in Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century, ed. Robert Goldwater (Pantheon, 1945)

 * There is a kind of success that is indistinguishable from panic.
 * Quoted by Daniel Halévy, Degas Parle (1960) [My Friend Degas, trans. and ed. Mina Curtiss, Wesleyan University Press, 1964], p. 119

 * Une peinture, c'est d'abord un produit de l'imagination de l'artiste, ce ne doit jamais être une copie. Si, ensuite, on peut y ajouter deux ou trois accents de nature, evidemment ca ne fait pas de mal.
 * A painting is above all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy. If, at a later stage, he wants to add two or three touches from nature, of course it doesn't spoil anything.
 * Quoted by Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13

 * C'est très bien de copier ce qu'on voit, c'est beaucoup mieux de dessiner ce que l'on ne voit plus que dans son mémoire. C'est une transformation pendant laquelle l'ingéniosité collabore avec la mémoire.  Vous ne reproduisez que ce qui vous a frappé, c'est-à-dire le nécessaire.
 * It is very good to copy what one sees; it is much better to draw what you can't see any more but is in your memory. It is a transformation in which imagination and memory work together. You only reproduce what struck you, that is to say the necessary.
 * Quoted in Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13

 * Je voudrais être illustre et inconnu.
 * I should like to be famous and unknown.
 * Degas said this to Henri Rouart, as cited by Antoine Terrasse, in Degas (Chartwell Books, 1982)

 * Women can never forgive me; they hate me, they feel I am disarming them. I show them without their coquetry.
 * Quoted by Julian Barnes, 'The Artist As Voyeur' (1996), from The Grove Book of Art Writing, ed. Martin Gayford and Karen Wright (Grove Press, 2000)

 * Oh! Women can never forgive me. They hate me, they can feel that I ‘m disarming them. I show them without their coquetry, in the states of animals cleaning themselves... ...I'm sure of it; they see me as the enemy. Fortunately, since if they did like me, that would be the end of me.
 * In Degas by Himself, Drawings, Paintings, Writings, ed. Richard Kendall 2000, p. 299

 * pinkish and bluish draperies on neutral grey grounds and black cypresses...  ...The red of Jeptha's dress...   ...some reddish brown, some slightly pinkish...   ...Graduated blue sky...   ...the ground at the front a grey violet shadow...   Look for some turquoise in the blue.(Degas' working note about choosing colors for his future painting 'The Daughter of Jeptha')
 * Quote from Degas' working notes; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34

 * ..women...  ...their way of observing, combining, sensing the way they dress. They compare a thousand of more visible things with one another than a man does.
 * Quote from The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 53

 * Anyone would think paintings were made like speculations on the stock market, out of the frictions of ambitious young people...  ...it sharpens the mind, but clouds your judgement.
 * Quote from The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34

 * Draw all kind of everyday object placed, in such a way that they have in them the life of the man or woman – corsets that have just been removed, for example, and which retain the form of the body. Do a series in aquatint on mourning, different blacks – black veils of deep mourning floating on the face – black gloves – mourning carriages, undertaker’s vehicles – carriages like Venetian gondolas. On smoke – smoker’s smoke, pipes, cigarettes, cigars – smoke from locomotives, from tall factory chimneys, from steam boats, etc. On evening – infinite variety of subjects in cafes, different tones of glass robes reflected in the mirrors. On bakery, bread. Series of baker's boys, seen in the cellar itself or through the basement windows from the street – backs the colour of the pink flour – beautiful curves of dough – still-life's of different breads, large, oval, long, round, etc. Studies in color of the yellows, pinks, grays, whites of bread...  ...Neither monuments nor houses have ever been done from below, close up as they appear when you walk down the street. [a working note in which Degas planned series of views of modern Paris, the same time when he sketched the backstreet brothels, making graphic unflinching and even his realistic 'pornographic' sketches he called his 'glimpses through the keyhole', in which he also experimented with perspectives]
 * Quote from Degas' Notebooks; Clarendon Press, Oxford 1976, nos 30 & 34 circa 1877; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 182

 * [make drawings of] series of instruments and players; their shapes, twisting of the hands, arms and neck of the violinist; for example, puffing out and hollowing of the cheeks of bassoonists, oboists, etc..
 * Quote from Degas' Notebook (undated); as quoted in Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition, Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, pp. 81-82

 * We were created to look at one another, weren't we.
 * Quote of Degas, as cited in Walter Sickert The Complete writing on art ed Anna Robins OUP, Oxford 2002 ISBN 0199261695

Misattributed

 * I always suspect an artist who is successful before he is dead.
 * John Murray Gibbon, Pagan Love (1922), ch. xiv

Quotes about Edgar Degas

 * sorted chronologically, by date of the quotes about Edgar Degas

 * A strange fellow, this Degas — sickly, a bundle of nerves, with such weak eyes that he is afraid of going blind, yet for these very reasons extremely sensitive to the character of things. He is more skillful in capturing the essence of modern life than anyone I know.
 * Quote by Edmond de Goncourt (1874), Journal (1874-02-13)

 * ..while speaking to us [Degas, to the brothers Goncourt] with their language and explaining technically the stroke of the iron for pressing and the circular stroke, etc.. .And it is really very humorous to see him [Degas], up on his toes, and with his arms curved, blending the aesthetics of the dance master with the aesthetics of the painter.
 * Quote by Edmond Goncourt (1874), a note in his Journal; as cited in The Technical aspects of Degas's art, by Theodore Reff, in Metropolitan Museum Journal 4, 1971, p. 143
 * Degas, is imitating for the brothers Goncourt the gestures of dancers, and showing them the pictures he had made of the dancers

 * The best thing he [Degas] does are his sketches. As soon as he gets to polish a picture, his drawing [in the picture] grows weak and pitiable. The drawing in pictures like his 'Portraits in an office' [in New Orleans], results in something between a marine painting and an engraving for an illustrated newspaper.
 * Quote by Émile Zola (1876); as cited in Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition, Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, p. 99
 * Zola (1876) is referring to: 'Interior of the cotton buyers' office' in New Orleans (1873)

 * I was painting modern Paris while you were still painting Greek athletes [Manet to his friend Edgar Degas, [quoted by George Moore c. 1879]. [Later Degas reacted: 'That Manet, as soon as I started painting dancers, he did them.'
 * Quote of Édouard Manet (c. 1879), as quoted in The Impressionists at first hand, by Bernard Denvir, Thames and Hudson, London 1991, p. 78

 * A painter of modern life had been born, moreover, a painter who derived from and resembled no other, who brought with him a totally new artistic flavor, as well as totally new skills.
 * Quote of Joris-Karl Huysmans, in 'L'exposition des Independents' 1880, in Modern Art and Modernism, Franscina and Harrison, p. 45-50

 * The ones [compliments] I value most came from Edgar Degas who said he was happy to see my work becoming more and more pure.
 * Quote of Camille Pissarro, Paris, 4 May 1883, in a letter to his son Lucien; from Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien, ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, pp. 29-30
 * Degas' comment, after having seen Pissarro's painting-show at Durand-Ruel 's gallery in Paris, May 1883

 * You [Lucien Pissarro] will also be very pleased to find in reading the book [L'Art Moderne of Huysmans ] that you are not alone in your enthusiasm for Edgar Degas, who is without a doubt the greatest artist of the period.
 * Quote of Camille Pissarro, Paris, 9 May 1883, in a letter to his son Lucien; from Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien, ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 31

 * As I admired it [a red pencil and chalk drawing by Degas of a young mother, nursing her child] he showed me a whole series done from the same model and with the same sort of rhythm. He is a draughtsman of the first order; it would be interesting to show all these preparatory studies for a painting to the public, which generally imagines that the impressionists work in a very casual way. I do not think it possible to go further in the rendering of form.
 * Quote of Berthe Morisot (January 1886), note in her Journal, about her visit to Degas' studio; as quoted in The Private Lives of the Impressionists Sue Roe; Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, pp. 262-263

 * Degas is a hundred times more loyal [than other impressionist artists, then]. - I told Degas that Seurat's painting was very interesting. [Degas:] 'I would have noted that myself, Pissarro, except that the painting is so big!' Very well - if Degas sees nothing in it so much the worse for him. This simply means there is something precious that escapes him. We shall see.
 * Quote of Camille Pissarro, in a letter, Paris, March 1886, to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 80
 * Seurat intended to show his large canvas 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte'

 * I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his [Degas'] art. It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it.
 * Quote of Mary Cassatt, memory c. 1890's; as quoted by Nancy Mowll in Mary Cassatt: A Life, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998 - ISBN 978-0-585-36794-1, p. 114
 * Cassatt admired Degas, whose pastels had made a powerful impression on her when she encountered them in an Paris' art dealer's window in 1875. She accepted Degas' invitation later with enthusiasm, to participate in the next Impressionist show, planned for 1878

 * With what is he [Degas] concerned? Drawing was at its lowest ebb; it had to be restored. Looking at these nudes, I exclaim, "Drawing has come back again!" As a man and painter he sets an example. Degas is one of those rare masters who could have had anything he wanted, yet he scorned decorations, honors, fortune, without bitterness, without jealousy.
 * quote of Paul Gauguin, from his book Avant et après (1903)

 * It isn't ideas I'm short of.. .I've got too many [on discussing poetry with Mallarmé, who replied]: Degas, you can't make a poem with ideas - you make it with words'.
 * Quote by Paul Valery in Degas, Manet, Morisot,, (translation, David Paul) Pantheon, New York 1960

 * I have often heard Degas say that in painting you must give the idea of the true by means of the false.
 * Quote by Walter Sickert, 'The Royal Academy', in English Review (June 1912)

 * because of the many tracings that Degas did of his drawings, the public accused him of repeating himself. But his passion for perfection was responsible for this continual research.
 * Quote of Ambroise Vollard, in Degas, George Allen and Unwin, 1928

 * I would ask him to give me his definition of drawing. 'You don't know a thing about it,' he would always end up saying. And without fail he would go on to this apologue: that the Muses do their work on their own, each apart from the others, and that they never talk shop. The day's work over, there are no discussions, no comparisons of their respective labors. 'They just dance,' he [Degas] would shout.
 * Quote by Paul Valéry, in About Corot (Autour de Corot, 1932)

 * Forain s'était construit un hôtel, et fil installer le téléphone presque nouveau. Il voulut d'abord "épater" Degas. Il l'invite à dîner, previent un compere, qui, pendant le dîner, appelle Forain à l'appareil. Quelque mots échangé, Forain revient. Degas lui dit: "C'est ça le téléphone? On vous sonne et vous y allez."
 * When Forain built himself a town house, he installed a telephone, which was still not in very wide use. Wanting above all to surprise Degas with it, he invited him to dinner, and forewarned a friend, who summoned Forain to the receiver during the meal. After exchanging a few words, Forain sits down at table again. "So that's the telephone?" says Degas. "They ring, and you run."
 * Quote by Paul Valéry, in Degas Danse Dessin (1935): "More Obiter Dicta"

 * Indeed, Degas, immured in his Paris studio, was so little of this world that he became almost a legend. He was pictured as a sort of monster whose misanthropic furies against those who tried to force his friendship were unbounded. In the latter years of his life, there was a story current that an old friend, having obtained permission from Degas to visit his studio, was met by a bearded demon at the door and thrown bodily down the stairs.
 * Quote of Harold L. Van Doren, in 'Introduction' of Degas, An Intimate Portrait, by Ambroise Vollard, - translation from the French by Randolph T. Weaver; Crown Publishers, New York, 1937, p. 17

 * When Gervex was at work on his [painting] 'Lesson in Anatomy' Degas said to him: 'Did you ever see a student taking notes while the professor is lecturing?.. ..He ought to be rolling a cigarette.' And it was this bit of advice which made the picture [because Gervex followed Degas's advice]. However, when Gervex was doing his 'Rolla'  (c. 1878), Degas happened to see the picture, and again made recommendations: 'You must make it plain that the woman is not a model. Where is the dress she has taken off. Put a pair of corsets on the floor near by." The canvas was refused by the Salon on grounds of indecency. 'You see', said Degas afterwards, 'nude models are all right at the Salon, but a woman undressing - never!'
 * Quote by Ambroise Vollard, from his book Degas, An Intimate Portrait, - translation from the French by Randolph T. Weaver; Crown Publishers, New York, 1937, p. 47-48

 * [Degas compared] to a writer striving to attain the utmost precision of form, drafting and redrafting, canceling, advancing by endless recapitulation, never admitting that his work has reached its final stage: from sheet to sheet, copy to copy, he continually revises his drawing, deepening, tightening, closing it up.
 * Quote by Paul Valéry, in Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, Princeton University 1989; as quoted in Outside the Lines, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 89

 * I am convinced that Degas felt a work could never be called finished, and that he could not conceive how an artist could look at one of his pictures after a time and not feel the need to retouch it.
 * Quote of Paul Valéry, in Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, Princeton University 1989; as quoted in Outside the Lines, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 89

 * Severely self-critical, he would take a certain pleasure in repeating what a critic had said about him in a review of an exhibition: Continually uncertain about proportions. Nothing, he [Degas] claimed, could better describe his state of mind while he was toiling and struggling over a work.
 * Quote of Paul Valéry, in Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, Princeton University 1989; as quoted in Outside the Lines, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 70

 * Whenever Degas came upon some more or less early work of his own, he always wanted to get it back on the easel and rework it. Thus, after seeing again and again at our house [of the art-buyer Henri Rouart ] a delightful pastel my father had bought and was very fond of, Degas.. ..would not let the matter alone, and in the end my father, from sheer weariness, let him take it away. It was never seen again..  ..in the end he had to confess his crime: the work entrusted to him for a few retouches had been completely destroyed..  ..It was then that Degas, to make it up to him for his loss, sent him one day the famous 'Danseuses a la barre'..
 * Quote of Henri Rouart's son, as cited in Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, Princeton University 1989; as quoted in Outside the Lines, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 90

 * Degas isn't enough of a painter; he doesn't have enough of that! With a little bit of temperament one can manage to be a painter, It's enough to have a sense of art, and that sense is no doubt what the bourgeoisie fear most.. .For a painter, sensation is at the bottom of everything. I will go on repeating it forever. Procedures are not what I advocate.
 * Paul Cézanne, quote from: 'What he told me – II. The Louvre', in Joachim Gasquet's Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906); Thames and Hudson, London 1991 pp. 184-185

 * All Paris knew him as a fighter, a recluse, guarding his privacy with cruel, crushing words. The habitués of the Paris boulevards defended themselves against his scorn by accusing him of insincerity. "Degas," they said, "would like to see his reflection in a boulevard window in order to give himself the satisfaction of breaking the plate-glass with his cane."
 * Quote by Daniel Halévy, in Degas Parle (1960) [My Friend Degas, trans. and ed. Mina Curtiss, Wesleyan University Press, 1964]

 * To anyone who is not an artist it must seem rather strange that Degas who could do anything — for whom setting down what he saw presented no difficulties at all — should have continued to draw the same poses year after year — often, it would seem, with increasing difficulty. Just as a classical dancer repeats the same movements again and again, in order to achieve a greater perfection of line and balance, so Degas repeats the same motifs, it was one of the things that gave him so much sympathy with dancers. He was continually struggling to achieve an idea of perfect form, but this did not prevent him looking for the truth in what might seem an artificial situation.
 * Quote by Kenneth Clark, The Romantic Rebellion (1973): 'Degas'

 * Lautrec was greatly influenced by the techniques, style and subject matter of Degas, who was a close neighbor between 1887 and 1891. ...Like Degas, Lautrec experimented with painting with which was called peinture à l'essence. In Degas' method, oil was drawn out of his colours by placing them on blotting paper. Then the chalky paint was diluted with turpentine and applied like a wash to his support. Because the turpentine spirit evaporated quickly, the colours dried rapidly, so that the paint surface could be reworked and built up without enormous delays. Unlike paint applied thinly in glazes, with this technique the colour dries mat, and has a chalky surface only thinly and sparely coloured.
 * Anthea Callen, Techniques of the Impressionists (1982) p. 166.

 * He [Degas] was an avid collector of both old and new art; in his sixties he purchased two Gauguins, and when pushing eighty he remarked with some admiration of Cubism that: 'it seems even more difficult than painting.'
 * Quote by Robert Hughes, Edgar Degas, as cited in Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists (Viking/Penguin, 1991)

title: Edgar Degas