Solitary not Confinement

I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.
-Lord Byron

I feel more and more detached from the outside world, from crowds, from the public and from anything mechanized. I prefer mainly to be alone.
-Leonore Fini

The place where I had freedom most was when I painted. I was completely and utterly myself. It was more than a profession. It was even a therapy, for there I just told it as it was. It takes a lot of courage in life to tell it how it is.
-Alice Neel

What makes for great art is the courage to speak and write and paint what you know and care about.
-Audrey Flack

The outside world pressures you into a mold, but if you don't accept that - you gamble with life. Call it gambling. You know when I decided to become professional - that means to expose yourself naked to the world with the other creative minds - I said, I'm going into areas I don't know. I might just fall right down to hell and kill myself. And I said, well, who cares? I'd rather do it and see what it's all about. I don't want the safe way. The safe way limits you.
-Louise Nevelson

I have lived on a razor's edge. So what if I had fallen off, I'd rather be doing something I really wanted to do. I'd walk it again.
-Georgia O'Keefe