Oil and Marble Quotes

“I think … the greater danger for most of us is not in aiming too high and falling short, but in aiming too low and hitting the mark.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“Wisdom is the daughter of experience,” Michelangelo”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“A drop of ocean water had the ambition to rise high into the air. So, with the help of fire, it rose as vapor, but when it flew so high that the air turned cold, it froze and fell from the sky as rain. The parched soil drank up the little drop and imprisoned it for a long time: punishment for its greedy ambition. You’re”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“Chaos erupting into beauty. That’s art.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“think … the greater danger for most of us is not in aiming too high and falling short, but in aiming too low and hitting the mark.” “I”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“The desperate brutality of men grasping for power is one of the universe’s great idiocies.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“My interests don’t distract me from my art, but feed it. Music feeds math feeds science feeds painting. The only way to create something unique is to make connections between seemingly disparate things. If I focus only on art, my art will die.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“Donatello”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“With the explosion of books, people were more likely to rely on the theories of other men instead of learning from their own experiences. That path led to the regurgitation of old ideas, not newly formed thoughts. With a large library, people would no longer memorize facts, but look up whatever they wanted to know in a book.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“Simplicity was the ultimate sophistication, the path to true complexity.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“We are like lovers, aren’t we, we artists?” Michelangelo dragged his fingers across the rough stone. “Timid at first, skeptical about what we might find beneath the surface, but the more time we spend with the objects of our desire, the more we start to understand them. We find their flaws but also their possibilities. And when we connect, our hearts beat in time, and when we speak, our voices come from one mouth. Through love, we dialogue with our own souls.” Michelangelo opened”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“But if machines, and only machines, were responsible for duplicating images, human connection would disappear altogether. Humanity would be destroyed.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“Patience protects us against insults just as clothes against the cold.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“But he wasn’t procrastinating because he didn’t want to work on the friar’s painting. No. A masterpiece did not pop immediately to mind. He had to knead the problems like dough: how could the Virgin’s face fulfill classical expectations of beauty, yet surprise the viewer with the unexpected; how could each of the figures maintain their separate identities, yet intertwine into a single whole; how could he transform a few scratches of lines on paper into a living, breathing, complex organism? Creating new life took time. Now that his first year was almost up, Leonardo needed to convince the friars to let him stay. He had barely made any progress on human flight. Relocating now would interrupt his experiments. He had to prove that he was not only working on the altarpiece, but that a painting by him would be worth the wait. So, for the last two weeks, he had been displaying his design to the public, and now he had invited the friars up to witness the spectacle. As the song came to an end, Leonardo stepped onto a raised platform next to a large panel covered in a piece of black velvet. He raised his hand with a flourish, and Salaì yanked off the cloth. His cartoon, the life-sized preparatory drawing for the altarpiece, was displayed on a gilded pedestal. Candlelight illuminated the charcoal and chalk sketch on thin, tinted paper. The picture was of St. Anne, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and baby Jesus, all interconnected in a surging, pyramidal composition. The four figures were vibrant, their faces the ideal of classical beauty. He’d spent months dreaming up that image before putting it down on paper, so when he’d finally started sketching, the lines seemed to appear in a flash. Like his performance that night, it was all part of his show. Let the people think the design had arrived complete and perfect, as if sent by God himself.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“The only way to create something unique is to make connections between seemingly disparate things. If I focus only on art, my art will die.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“other two”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“Art was not meant to be created in public, but to emerge in the quietest, most private moments of the soul.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“With the explosion of books, people were more likely to rely on the theories of other men instead of learning from their own experiences. That path led to the regurgitation of old ideas, not newly formed thoughts. With a large library, people would no longer memorize facts, but look up whatever they wanted to know in a book. The”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“People are more inclined to believe bad intentions than good ones. - Boccaccio”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble

“The danger for most of us isn’t in setting or sights too high and missing them, but in setting them too low and hitting our mark . - Michelangelo”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble

“How can you be too nice for Rome? Rome is a city of saints . - Raphael”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble

“Yes, that’s because he was the cause of the fall. Woman is the mother of all chaos. She should be ugly. - Pope Julius II”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble

“Only people who had deeply felt love would be able to detect the secret hidden in Lisa’s face. If they hadn’t felt it, she would seem as lifeless and dull as a tin plate. They wouldn’t understand what drew others to her. They would dismiss the painting as small and unimpressive. However, those who had felt true love will be transfixed. Her image would inexplicably haunt them forever. They would never never be able to articulate what drew them in. The moment someone tried to explain why they were attracted to the painting, words would evade them, and the feeling would disappear, fast as a wisp of smoke from a votive candle . As with love itself , when a person pulled back to study it, the very thing there were trying to understand was destroyed. Because love doesn’t thrive under scrutiny from a distance, but flourishes from closeness and unquestioning faith. It blooms in the deep parts of the heart, in the silence where no thought is allowed. The only way to be truly in love is to be fully in it, just as the only way to feel the secret of the Mona Lisa was to give the heart absolutely to it.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble

“Always let the patrons think they are smarter than you. – Michelangelo”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble

“I think . . . the greatest danger for most of us is not aiming too high and falling short, but in aiming too low and hitting the mark. – Michelangelo”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble

“The body is a reflection of the soul; the more moral a person, the more beautiful – Michelangelo”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble

“One night of admiration was no consolation for a lifetime of being trapped in this room. “We are about to go see the unveiling of that young man’s new David. It’s exciting. The whole city is out in the streets.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“When fearful, people would give up their money, their land, even their freedom, all to protect their security, which, ironically, could never actually be protected.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“Michelangelo opened his eyes and stared into the gray stone. “Love defies planning, doesn’t it? There is no reason and no answer and no rhyme that can recreate it. But in an instant we feel it, a tingle on top of our heads, down our necks, into our fingertips. And we don’t know why or how it’s there, but it is, existing because of us, in spite of us. We don’t know what it is. We don’t know, and in the very act of not knowing, we feel everything.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“wish understanding human beings was as simple as counting the number of trees in a forest or observing how a bird glides through the air.”
― Stephanie Storey, Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo