A Few Quotes - Michael O’Brien
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| (Found here) |
“...One of the things that haunts me as an artist is the way we project so much onto the world. I’m down on my luck, and the world looks a wretched place. I’m feeling prosperous, so I think the whole international scene is too. I’m unhappy, so I look around and all I see is unhappiness. I buy a certain brand of car, and suddenly I notice them everywhere. Or I’m in love and all I see is love, the whole world in love.”
“It’s a question of focus.”
“Right. So what intrigues me about this way we see things is the interpretation part. Most of painting is leaving things out. A good image selects for the viewer, you see. The artist is an interpreter. That’s the genius of it, the true art of it. Mixing the colors is just technique.”
“That makes sense. So what are you asking?”
“I’m asking if when a person looks at another person whether or not he ever really sees him. You know, really sees him. Who he is.”
“Theoretically, it’s possible.”
“I think most of us almost always see some image or symbol in the mind rather than the real person. The being.”
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“What is a soul?”
“A soul . . . ,” he said in a low voice, “a soul is a word spoken into the void. It pushes back the darkness. It defies the night.”
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“...I don’t agree with Keats that truth is beauty and beauty is truth and that’s all you need to know. We need to know a hell of a lot more than that. But I do know that truth doesn’t do well without the help of beauty. It needs it so badly I think the world would collapse without it. Without it we couldn’t grasp things intuitively, things we could never express by intelligence.”
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“Nothing’s ordinary when you really look at it.”
~Michael O’Brien (from Strangers and Sojourners)
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