‘Be Really Tender’: 12 Famous Artists Offer Life Advice

Brian Boucher December 1, 2023 ShareShare This Article

We look to artists for their incisive ways of seeing the world, for the way they cut through the clutter of everyday life to get to the core of what is meaningful.

The book Art Is the Highest Form of Hope (Phaidon, 2016), assembles an array of quotes from artists, all of them culled from sources like published diaries, correspondence, interviews, and books, to avoid the apocrypha often found online. They deal with topics ranging from art and beauty to chance and childhood, drugs and failure to philosophy and sex, technology to the weather.

We all tend to get reflective at the end of one year and toward the beginning of the next, and may even be seeking a bit of guidance. As it happens, a selection of the artists’ quotes in Art Is the Highest Form of Hope dispense life advice.

Herewith are 12 great suggestions on how to get through life, from greats like Yoko Ono, Dorothea Lange, Rembrandt, and Mickalene Thomas.

Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange. Photo: Larry Colwell/Anthony Barboza/Getty Images.

“Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around, because hostility itself is important.”

Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono in Liverpool, England in 2008. Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.

“Don’t get rid of negative emotion, but just use it… like salt in your food.”

Rembrandt van Rijn

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Artist in His Studio (about 1628).

“Try to put well into practice what you already know; and in so doing, you will, in good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about.”

Robert Irwin

Robert Irwin. Courtesy Philipp Scholz Rittermann/Pace.

“For the next week, try the best you can to pay attention to sounds. You will start hearing all these sounds coming in.”

Sonia Boyce

Sonia Boyce. Photo: Parisa Taghizadeh.

“Let frustration fuel inspiration.”

Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter in 2015. Photo by Robert Michael/ullstein bild via Getty Images.

“I believe that you always have to believe.”

Laurie Anderson

Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson on January 19, 2005 in New York City. Photo: Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images.

“I’m just going to mention these three rules that Lou [Reed] and I had… The first one is don’t be afraid of anyone. Imagine your life if you’re not afraid of anyone. Two, get a really good BS detector and learn how to use it. Who’s faking it and who is not? Three, be really tender. And with those three, you’re set.”