My Name Is Asher Lev

You will have to grow accustomed to it. The world will indulge you just so long, Asher Lev. Then it will stop. You will simply have to grow accustomed to that truth.

You can do anything you want to do. What is rare is this actual wanting to do a specific thing: wanting it so much that you are practically blind to all other things, that nothing else will satisfy you.

I walked the streets and tasted the golden sun that lay across the city.

I am going to teach you that painting is not storytelling. If you want to tell stories, become either an illustrator or a writer. If you want to be a painter, you will learn to use line and color and shape and texture to create paintings, not stories.

Sometimes I think it is not wise to grow too old,.. […] But I am not aware that we are given a choice in this matter.

A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven.

If you want to know how to do a thing you must first have a complete desire to do that thing. Then go to kindred spirits—others who have wanted to do that thing—and study their ways and means, learn from their successes and failures, and add to your quota.

…beasts from a private mythology.

That is an eye drawing, Anna. Hands alone do not draw this way.

[I painted for] a truth I did not know how to put into words. For a truth I could only bring to life by means of color and line and texture and form.

“Millions of people can draw. Art is whether or not there is a scream in him [Asher] wanting to get out in a special way.” “Or a laugh,” she said. “Picasso laughs, too.” “Or a laugh,” he said.