I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.
Georgia O'KeeffeRead
When I think of death, I only regret that I will not be able to see this beautiful country anymore unless the Indians are right and my spirit will walk here after I'm gone.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a deep appreciation for the beauty of the world and the sorrow of being unable to witness it after death.
Georgia O'Keeffe expresses a poignant sentiment about mortality and her admiration for the beauty of the world around her. She reflects on the regret of not experiencing the natural landscapes she loves after her passing, while also contemplating the belief in an enduring spirit that can continue to appreciate this beauty even after death. The quote invites readers to consider their relationship with nature and what they value most in life.
In practice
This quote would be powerful in a eulogy to celebrate someone's love for nature.
I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.
I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.
You are one of my nicest thoughts.
It was in the 1920s, when nobody had time to reflect, that I saw a still-life painting with a flower that was perfectly exquisite, but so small you really could not appreciate it.
Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression.
Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something.
An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.
And I suddenly think, as I look across the table at him, that these are the days as they will be. This is the future as we see it. The swerve and the static. The confidence and the doubt.
The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.
The healthy man does not torture others.
In their rules there was only one clause: Do what you will.
The true test of a person's character is how they treat the people in life that they don't need.
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