Norman Rockwell Quotations

Some folks think I painted Lincoln from life, but I haven't been around that long. Not quite.

When I go to farms or little towns, I am always surprised at the discontent I find. And New York, too often, has looked across the sea toward Europe. And all of us who turn our eyes away from what we have are missing life.

Some people have been kind enough to call me a fine artist. I've always called myself an illustrator. I'm not sure what the difference is. All I know is that whatever type of work I do, I try to give it my very best. Art has been my life.

Everyone in those days expected that art students were wild, licentious characters. We didn't know how to be, but we sure were anxious to learn.

The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they're always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.

It was a pretty rough neighborhood where I grew up The really tough places were over around Third Avenue where it ran into the Harlem River, but we weren't far away.

Things aren't much wilder now, I don't think, than they were back then. Of course I just read about all the goings-on now. Ha.

My best efforts were some modern things that looked like very lousy Matisses. Thank God I had the sense to realize they were lousy, and leave Paris.

I'm not going to be caught around here for any fool celebration. To hell with birthdays!

Here in New England, the character is strong and unshakable.

Right from the beginning, I always strived to capture everything I saw as completely as possible.

No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He's got to put all his talent and feeling into them!

The '20s ended in an era of extravagance, sort of like the one we're in now. There was a big crash, but then the country picked itself up again, and we had some great years. Those were the days when American believed in itself. I was happy and proud to be painting it.

I'll never have enough time to paint all the pictures I'd like to.

Eisenhower had about the most expressive face I ever painted, I guess. Just like an actor's. Very mobile. When he talked, he used all the facial muscles. And he had a great, wide mouth that I liked. When he smiled, it was just like the sun came out.

The remarks about my reaching the age of Social Security and coming to the end of the road, they jolted me. And that was good. Because I sure as hell had no intention of just sitting around for the rest of my life. So I'd whip out the paints and really go to it.

A face in the picture would bother me, so I'd rub it out with the turpentine and do it over.

I didn't know what to expect from a famous movie star; maybe that he'd be sort of stuck-up, you know. But not Gary Cooper. He horsed around so much... that I had a hard time painting him.

I talk as I sketch, too, in order to keep their minds off what I'm doing so I'll get the most natural expression I can from them. Also, the talking helps to size up the subject's personality, so I can figure out better how to portray him.

You must first spend some time getting your model to relax. Then you'll get a natural expression.

I can take a lot of pats on the back. I love it when I get admiring letters from people. And, of course, I'd love it if the critics would notice me, too.

It wouldn't be right for me to clown around when I'm painting a president.

I had a couple of million dollars' worth of... stock once. And now it's not worth much more than wallpaper. I guess I just wasn't born to be rich.

I learned to draw everything except glamorous women. No matter how much I tried to make them look sexy, they always ended up looking silly... or like somebody's mother.

Very interesting for an old duffer like me to try his hand at something new. If I don't do that once in a while, I might just turn into a fossil, you know!

When I came home on leave, I thought I would surely have changed into a dashing figure... just because I was dressed for the part. But my friends laughed when they saw me in my navy uniform. I guess I must have been a sight, but I didn't realize I looked that silly. And I was so proud to come home in that uniform!

I'd be painting sometimes, and get the strangest feeling I was being watched. I'd look up and see faces pressed against the window or door screens. Then, when I noticed them, the people would want to come in and talk to me. Got very upset, too, when I was too busy. One time I remember a man drove his car clear across our lawn and parked it right in the middle of the grass. It was wild.

Guess I never really belonged in Westchester. I was never really happy there. But the hard-dirt farmers in Vermont-when I got with them, it was like coming home.

I would take the wrong approach for a teacher, I guess... But there was always someone in a class who would raise an objection to my way. They'd want to get into an argument with me. And I was no good at arguing. So I figured if that was what teaching was like, I better leave it to someone who knows how to maneuver an argument. I'd stick to what I knew-painting. So I didn't stay long at the Los Angeles County Artists School.

Lady Bird Johnson had that extra-special Southern charm that you just can't resist. Mrs. Goldwater was charming, too. And she was the smart one. She really didn't want to be the First Lady at all. And she got her wish.

I was asked to illustrate the classics of Mark Twain. He's one of my very favorite authors. I felt great!

We got a good look at the Himalayas, which they tell me are about 28,000 feet high. I expected to be very impressed, but really, they didn't look any more picturesque to me than the Berkshires or the Green Mountains. Certainly not as pleasant-looking as the wooded mountains we have in New England. I'll leave those cold and barren slopes in Asia to the mountain climbers.

I've always loved Dickens. And Henry James. Tolstoy, Dostoevski.

I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be. So I painted only the ideal aspects of it - pictures in which there are no drunken slatterns or self-centered mothers... only foxy grandpas who played baseball with the kids and boys who fished from logs and got up circuses in the backyard.

If the public dislikes one of my Post covers, I can't help disliking it myself.

I work from fatigue to fatigue at my age there's only so much daylight left.

Travel is like a tonic to me. It's more than just getting away from the studio for a brief rest. I need it to recharge my batteries.

I keep the pornographic stuff in a bus station locker.

I know of no painless process for giving birth to a picture idea. When I must produce, I retire to a quiet room with a supply of cheap paper and sharp pencils; my brain knows it's going to take a beating.

The Balopticon [a machine that projects photos on canvas to trace the lines] is an evil, inartistic, habit-forming, lazy and vicious machine! It also is a useful, time-saving, practical and helpful one. I use one often-and am thoroughly ashamed of it. I hide it whenever I hear people coming.

The view of life I communicate in my pictures excludes the sordid and ugly. I paint life as I would like it to be.

I'm still about as pigeon-toed as you can get. But I learned to manage pretty well on a bike. Should have had a bicycle then, when I was a kid, but our family didn't have the money for such luxuries. I saved up to buy one myself a few years later.

How will I be remembered? As a technician or artist? As a humorist or a visionary?

If there was sadness in this creative world of mine, it was a pleasant sadness. If there were problems, they were humorous problems.

I'm tired, but proud.

I used to sit in the studio with a copy of the (Saturday Evening) Post laid across my knees ... And then I'd conjure up a picture of myself as a famous illustrator and gloat over it, putting myself in various happy situations, surrounded by admiring females, deferred to by office flunkies at the magazines, wined and dined by the editor...

If a picture wasn't going very well, I'd put a puppy in it.

I'm the oldest antique in town.

If a picture wasn't going very well I'd put a puppy dog in it, always a mongrel, you know, never one of the full bred puppies. And then I'd put a bandage on its foot... I liked it when I did it, but now I'm sick of it.

The story is the first thing and the last thing,

Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative.

Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed. My fundamental purpose is to interpret the typical American. I am a story teller.

I paint life as I would like it to be,

I just wanted to do something important.