Top 46 Quotes & Sayings by Norman Rockwell
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American artist Norman Rockwell.
Last updated on April 22, 2025.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
I'll never have enough time to paint all the pictures I'd like to.
Some folks think I painted Lincoln from life, but I haven't been around that long. Not quite.
It wouldn't be right for me to clown around when I'm painting a president.
A face in the picture would bother me, so I'd rub it out with the turpentine and do it over.
No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He's got to put all his talent and feeling into them!
I'm the oldest antique in town.
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.
You must first spend some time getting your model to relax. Then you'll get a natural expression.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Right from the beginning, I always strived to capture everything I saw as completely as possible.
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.
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.
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 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.
Here in New England, the character is strong and unshakable.
I'm tired, but proud.
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'm not going to be caught around here for any fool celebration. To hell with birthdays!
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!
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 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.
The story is the first thing and the last thing.
I paint life as I would like it to be.
How will I be remembered? As a technician or artist? As a humorist or a visionary?
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.
If the public dislikes one of my Post covers, I can't help disliking it myself.
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.
If there was sadness in this creative world of mine, it was a pleasant sadness. If there were problems, they were humorous problems.
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 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 just wanted to do something important.
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.
I keep the pornographic stuff in a bus station locker.
Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative.
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 work from fatigue to fatigue at my age there's only so much daylight left.
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