David Cobley famous quotes

Sometimes, in a portrait, I go straight in with paint onto canvas... Other than riding my bike up and down the hills around here, it is the most dangerous thing I do... like tightrope-walking without a safety net!
-- David Cobley

#Safety #Portraits #Riding

People fascinate me. Consciously or unconsciously, I have been studying their behavior all my life.
-- David Cobley

#People #Humanity #Study

All of us take an interest, to a greater or lesser extent, in what people around us look like, what they are doing, and why they are doing it.
-- David Cobley

#People #Looks #Interest

As a boy, I used to look at reproductions of Rembrandt's portraits... the people in his paintings were so real I felt I knew them... It is his empathy for the sitter, combined with his enjoyment and dexerity in handling paint that captured my imagination then, and is what I am striving for still.
-- David Cobley

#Real #Boys #People

Painting someone's portrait is, of course, an impossible task. What an absurd idea to try and distil a human being, the most complex organism on the planet, into flicks, washes, and blobs of paint on a two-dimensional surface.
-- David Cobley

#Two #Ideas #Trying

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.

The search for safety takes its clearest form... in the compulsive-obsessive neurosis... to frantically order and stabilize the world so that no unmanageable, unexpected or unfamiliar dangers will ever appear.

Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety.

To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.

Jeanne, I fell asleep among the paintings, where I could sit for many days worshipping your portrait. I fell in love with your portrait, Jeanne, because it will never change. I have such a fear of seeing you grow old, Jeanne, I fell in love with an unchanging you that will never be taken away from me. I was wishing you would die, so that no one could take you away from me, and I would love the painting of you as you would look eternally.

When I look at great works of art or listen to inspired music, I sense intimate portraits of the specific times in which they were created.

When perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun and fear is that annoying backseat driver!

No one can teach riding so well as a horse.

If I have to move up in a building, I choose the elevator over the escalator. Because one time I was riding the escalator and I tripped. I fell down the stairs for an hour and a half.