Jeff Melvoin Quotes

You're confusing product with process. Most people, when they criticize, whether they like it or hate it, they're talking about product. That's not art, that's the result of art. Art, to whatever degree we can get a handle on (I'm not sure that we really can) is a process. It begins in the heart and the mind with the eyes and hands.

By Jeff Melvoin

You think Nature is some Disney movie Nature is a killer. Nature is a bitch. It's feeding time out there 24 hours a day, every step that you take is a gamble with death. If it isn't getting hit with lightning today, it's an earthquake tomorrow or some deer tick carrying Lime disease. Either way, you're ending up on the wrong end of the food chain.

By Jeff Melvoin

What is it about possessing things Why do we feel the need to own what we love, and why do we become jerks when we do We've all been there-- you want something, to possess it. By possessing something you lose it. You finally win the girl of your dreams, the first thing you do is change her. The little things she does with her hair, the way she wears her clothes or the way she chews her gum. Pretty soon what you like, what you changed, what you don't like, blends together like a watercolor in the rain.

By Jeff Melvoin

The law is not so much carved in stone as it is written in water, flowing in and out with the tide.

By Jeff Melvoin

The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the election itself...The act of voting is in itself the defining moment.

By Jeff Melvoin

That's not painting, that's Paint-By-Numbers. That's therapy for the artistically challenged. That's what they prescribe for cretins in dayrooms.

By Jeff Melvoin

Talking perceptions, people. Do we really see each other for what we really are, or do we just see what we want to see, the image distorted by our own personal lenses I lost someone today and the funny thing is, I don't even know who she was.

By Jeff Melvoin

Sexually,we are all competing for the same seat on the bus and the thing that holds it together is the tightly held conceit that we are all sexual gods. How can I believe in my own uniqueness when there's a cat out there exactly the same as me

By Jeff Melvoin

Rain usually makes me feel mellow. Curl up in the corner time, slow down, smell the furniture. Today it just makes me feel wet.

By Jeff Melvoin

It's not your painting anymore. It stopped being your painting the moment that you finished it.

By Jeff Melvoin

It's cabin fever season people, that time of year when four walls feel like they're going to come in here and choke the spirit right out of you. Time to lock away those firearms and hang tough. No way through it except to do it.

By Jeff Melvoin

Is love supposed to last throughout all time, or is it like trains changing at random stops. If I loved her, how could I leave her If I felt that way then, how come I don't feel anything now

By Jeff Melvoin

I've been over what I'm supposed to say and I've got to tell you, it's pretty persuasive stuff, but is it the whole truth It's a slice of truth, a morsel, a fraction. It's a piece of the pie, certainly not the whole enchilada, and now that I've been thinking about it, I don't think I could tell the whole truth about anything. That's a pretty heavy burden, because we all just view the world through this little piece of coke bottle. Is there such a thing as objective truth I wonder.

By Jeff Melvoin

I'm not judging people, I'm judging their actions. It's the same type of distinction that I try to apply to myself, to judge, but not be judgmental.

By Jeff Melvoin

George Washington had a vision for this country. Was it three days of uninterrupted shopping

By Jeff Melvoin

George Washington had a vision for this country. Was it three days of uninterrupted shopping?

By Jeff Melvoin

First I thought it was numbness, shock. The inability to believe that a just God could allow someone to destroy a gold mine of prehistoric knowledge for a year's worth of Salisbury steak...Life is a mystery. One man's life- altering experience is another man's tenderloin.

By Jeff Melvoin

Ed, we just witnessed a peaceful transition in government. Do you realize how miraculous that is...Today, tiny Cicely, Alaska, stood up and put another W in the win category for democracy.

By Jeff Melvoin

Chris says it's all in the doing, but to tell you the truth, there's a lot to be said for the having.

By Jeff Melvoin

CHRIS What's art, Holling Is a Davinci art Dada art If you wrap up the whole Reichstag in toilet paper, is that art HOLLING Well, I can't give you a complete definition, but I think it would be something Maurice would be willing to give good money for. CHRIS Yeah, well, you're starting to scare me cause if that's art, then I got to get a whole new gig.

By Jeff Melvoin

Check out the Declaration of Independence You think it promises happiness No no no, it talks about the pursuit of happiness. The PURSUIT We've become a nation of wimps We think we're entitled to everything, we want to legislate ourselves into some cozy little cocoon. Well, forget it, Nature Boy. There are no guarantees. Life is nasty, brutish, and short.

By Jeff Melvoin

As close as we are today, tomorrow when we come back from that battlefield, we will be as close as two men can possibly be, sharing a bond that can only be forged in the face of imminent disfigurement. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.

By Jeff Melvoin