Leonora Carrington Quotes

This is a love letter to a nightmare.

Leonora Carrington (The Seventh Horse and Other Tales, 1988)

Sentimentality is a form of fatigue.

Leonora Carrington

I warn you, I refuse to be an object.

Leonora Carrington

I suppose what I believe in is peaceful anarchy.

Leonora Carrington (Reuters Interview, 2007)

Surviving. I’m not well. I think about death a lot.

Leonora Carrington (Interview: When asked what occupies her when not working on her artworks, 2009)

One is born, one lives, one dies. What death is, I don't know.

Leonora Carrington

There are things that are not sayable. That’s why we have art.

Leonora Carrington

One has to be careful what one takes when one goes away forever.

Leonora Carrington (The Hearing Trumpet, 1976)

Darling stop being philosophical it doesn't suit you, it makes your nose red.

Leonora Carrington (The Hearing Trumpet, 1976)

I painted for myself...I never believed anyone would exhibit or buy my work.

Leonora Carrington (Quoted in Women's Art Journal, 1986)

Art is a magic which makes the hours melt away and even days dissolve into seconds

Leonora Carrington (The Seventh Horse and Other Tales, 1988)

The task of the right eye is to peer into the telescope, while the left eye peers into the microscope.

Leonora Carrington

I didn't have time to be anyone's muse... I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist.

Leonora Carrington

I am a very boring person, despite my enormous intelligence and distinguished appearance, and nobody knows this better than I.

Leonora Carrington (House of Fear, 1988)

We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.

Leonora Carrington

No, I have not. How can one accept the totally unknown? [Agitated] We know nothing whatever about it, even if it happens to everyone, to everybody! Animals, vegetables, minerals—everything dies. How can you reconcile with something you know nothing about? Is there anything else? What do you want to know?

Leonora Carrington (Interview: When asked if she has reached an acceptance of death, 2009)

You may not believe in magic but something very strange is happening at this very moment. Your head has dissolved into thin air and I can see the rhododendrons through your stomach. It's not that you are dead or anything dramatic like that, it is simply that you are fading away and I can't even remember your name.

Leonora Carrington (The Hearing Trumpet, 1977)

Houses are really bodies. We connect ourselves with walls, roofs, & objects just as we hang on to our livers, skeletons, flesh & bloodstream. I am no beauty, no mirror is necessary to assure me of this absolute fact. Nevertheless I have a death grip on this haggard frame as if it were the limpid body of Venus herself.

Leonora Carrington (The Hearing Trumpet, 1977)

I had a cup of tea, thought about my day and mostly about the horse whom, though I'd only known him a short time, I called my friend. I have few friends and am glad to have a horse for a friend. After the meal I smoked a cigarette and mused on the luxury it would be to go out, instead of talking to myself and boring myself to death with the same endless stories I'm forever telling myself. I am a very boring person, despite my enormous intelligence and distinguished appearance, and nobody knows this better than I. I've often told myself that if only I were given the opportunity, I'd perhaps become the centre of intellectual society. But by dint of talking to myself so much, I tend to repeat the same things all the time. But what can you expect? I'm a recluse.

Leonora Carrington (House of Fear, 1988)

It is impossible to understand how millions and millions of people all obey a sickly collection of gentlemen that call themselves 'Government!' The word, I expect, frightens people. It is a form of planetary hypnosis, and very unhealthy.""It has been going on for years," I said. "And it only occurred to relatively few to disobey and make what they call revolutions. If they won their revolutions, which they occasionally did, they made more governments, sometimes more cruel and stupid than the last.""Men are very difficult to understand," said Carmella. "Let's hope they all freeze to death. I am sure it would be very pleasant and healthy for human beings to have no authority whatever. They would have to think for themselves, instead of always being told what to do and think by advertisements, cinemas, policemen, and parliaments.

Leonora Carrington (The Hearing Trumpet, 1977)

Leonora Carrington Biography

Leonora Carrington portrait

Born: 1917
Died: 2011

Leonora Carrington was a English-born Mexican painter, artist and author. She is best known for her prominent role in the Surrealist movement and for her esoteric fascinations.

Notable Works

The Hearing Trumpet (1977)
House of Fear (1988)