Al Hirschfeld Quotations

Writers who drew, they all seemed to draw the same way. They managed to keep that childlike creativity in their line.

You know, it's no accident that the great painters came from areas like Europe where there is a lot of clouds and rain, which begets color and subtle washes of tone. Most great graphic artists come from areas with prevalent sun, where line and shadow are paramount.

You always feel the drawing you are working on is the best you've ever done... I am only interested in the present.

Life isn't a science. We make it up as we go.

You learn your limitations and then you try to work within them.

I never know what to tell young people when they come here. It could never happen for anyone they way it happened for me. It was all an accident.

Iwas a sculptor.Butthat'sreallydrawinga drawing you fall over in the dark, a three-dimensional drawing.

The opening-night audience is mostly friends of the cast and backers of the show, and they cometo applaud their money.

I believe everybody is creative, and everybody is talented. I just don't think that everybody is disciplined. I think that's a rare commodity.

Try to distill the character of your subject. Understand how he moves, thinks, acts. It's difficult to put into words. Consider each drawing as a problem that did not exist before, and then try to solve that problem to the best of your ability. That i what caricature is all about

Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.

Life is an art, not a science. You make it up as you go along.

When I was about fourteen, my mother took me to see a musical comedy-and that was my first experience in the theater and I was enchanted with it. It transported me to another world-you might say that I was stage-struck. I was mesmerized by the stage.

You always feel the drawing you are working on is the best you've ever done, ... I am only interested in the present.

We arrived at Penn Station, took the Amsterdam Avenue street car to the end of the line. There was a frame house my mother rented for four dollars a month, and all around it were apple orchards,