Best 12 quotes of Don Watson on MyQuotes

Exaggerated passion combined with enthusiasm has the ingredients to make a prolific artist.

Gift to the creative artist: positive images in, positive images out. On the other hand, garbage in, garbage out.

I ask myself, 'Do you want to sit on the sidelines of life or do you want to be on the field?' I suppose all those years of building thicker skin has made it easy to endure criticism.

I like having my own style; love my work or hate my work, it's my own.

I remember trying not to disrupt everyone else in the room, fumbling around trying to figure out how to use the medium with a beautiful model disrobed in front of me.

It is part of the business of marketing to muddy the distinction between altruism and cynicism.

Jargon is making it increasingly hard to understand what a public figure is actually trying to say

Language is butchered by the media

Pictures rule, but words define, explain, express, direct, and hold together our thoughts and what we know.

The managerial class has forced on us a public language that makes no sense

There is nothing quite like a real political whiz. Some adopt an inscrutable, almost somnolent demeanour and make you beg for their wisdom, while others come at you like a whirlwind. The effect in both cases is the same: even when you think they must be extracting certitude from guesses or cucumbers from sunbeams, you are captive, not only to the verbal artistry but to the weight of the movement, the sense that on these matters to which you are now privy the course of history depends, Politics being civil war by other means, it is fought with the same volumes of smoke and passion and ruthless brutality, and it leaves some of the same psychic wounds. All political environments - democratic, republican and monarchical - have this much in common: it is never more than a short walk in any direction to find someone who disagrees with the last person you spoke to, or who envies or disapproves or wants to thwart him, or who feels thwarted, threatened or misused by him. As our conversation in the Four Seasons concluded, my friend stubbed out the butt of his cigar. I still had three inches to smoke. I left with it and later that evening I met a consultant, also from the Democratic side, who tried to put me wise to the first man’s failings. To be frank, I was left not knowing whom to believe. The consultant told me that these days he thinks it impossible for the US political system to throw up people or parties of true character, vision or integrity. (A businessman from the Republican side once told me the same thing.) Rather, the system is now ideal for hacks, ‘yes men’ and fodder for lobbyists. Political thinking has become institutionalised and incapable of solving the country’s problems. The press has lost character in proportion to the politician, and accepts their values and arguments almost without question. He thought universal national service with a non-military option might be one way to spread the burden and rekindle a sense of shared responsibility.

When I opened the curtains in the morning I saw the intersection of two six-lane highways. It was a comfortable, well equipped, practical sort of place, as Holidays Inns tend to be. You can be happy at a place like this so long as you stay away from the coffee. And the restaurant, if you want to be sure. Perhaps not happy, but not unhappy. Or if unhappy, at least not threatened. A good motel creates a kind of stasis for the soul in transit. One should leave no worse than one arrived: that is the minimum requirement.