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All Quotes by author - LeRoy Neiman

" As I turn 91 this June 8th, I have to admit my hours at the easel have diminished. "

" Boxing is my real passion. I can go to ballet, theatre, movies, or other sporting events... and nothing is like the fights to me. I'm excited by the visual beauty of it. A boxer can look so spectacular by doing a good job. "

" But 'Playboy' was liberating. I was drawn to it and went for it full throttle. "

" Eating is one of the great beauties in life. One of my favorite recreations... eating with friends, the service, the ambience. "

" Every time I started painting it was like a new experience, but they all came out the same. "

" I always stayed in tune with my own ambitions and attitudes and I'm still my intractable old self, for better or worse. "

" I can easily ignore my detractors and feel the people who respond favorably. "

" I don't know if I'm an impressionist or an expressionist. You can call me an American first... I've been labeled doing neimanism, so that's what it is, I guess. "

" I draw all the time. Drawing is my backbone. I don't think a painter has to be able to draw, I just think that if you draw, you better draw well. "

" I guess I created LeRoy Neiman. Nobody else told me how to do it. Well, I'm a believer in the theory that the artist is as important as his work. "

" I had a go at changing history - maybe not all by myself - I fought at the battle of Normandy, I slogged through the Ardennes, and I celebrated the liberation of Paris on the streets with beautiful French girls throwing flowers at me. I said good-bye to my first true love and discovered what I really wanted to do with my life. "

" I have always said to young artists that scholastic training and the studying of art history are crucial to fully developing as an artist. "

" I hold doors open for all the women. Men can open the doors for themselves. "

" I love the passion you go through while you're creating. "

" Imagination comes of not having things. "

" It's been fun. I've had a lucky life. Art has made me pull the best out of myself. "

" It's not the act of arrogance to draw, it's humbling - you must use your God-given talent. And of all the people I sketch, in most cases I feel I have to measure up to the subject. "

" I've got the public. I don't care about the critics. I did at one time. I don't any more. I did when I needed compliments. But if you get a lot of compliments, you don't need a critic to tell you, 'This should be done another way.' "

" I've zeroed in on what you would call action and excellence... Everybody who does anything to try to succeed has to give the best of themselves, and art has made me pull the best out of myself. "

" My lovely wife Janet has been in a few paintings. She is basically a reserved woman who has never sought the limelight. She has always been there throughout my career and continues to be at my side. "

" 'Playboy' made the good life a reality for me and made it the subject matter of my paintings - not affluence and luxury as such, but joie de vivre itself. "

" Some people try to paint in my style. Some simply sell pirated copies of my work. Some claim to be my publisher or agent or even my exclusive representative, when they are not. "

" The businessman says 'If I don't do it first, somebody else will.' The artist says 'If I don't do it first, nobody else will.' "

" The people who love my paintings, that respond to them the most, they're spectators, they're not viewers. "

" There's no greatest moment in the arts. It's a life, it's a continuity thing. You can't have a great moment because it's spiritual. It's a belief, it's a calling. If you're an artist, doing your own thing on your own, it's while you're doing it that counts. It's a process. If you get too elated, you can get too depressed. "

" You can't take yourself too seriously. "

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