An artist without ideas is a mendicant; barren, he goes begging among the hours.

— Irving Stone

A new doctor had been sent for, Lazaro of Pa via, who had administered to Lorenzo a pulverized mixture of diamonds and pearls. This hitherto infallible medicine had failed to help.

— Irving Stone

Art is a staple like bread or wine or a warm coat in winter. Man's spirit grows hungry for art in the same way his stomach growls for food.

— Irving Stone

Bleed me of art, and there won't be enough liquid left in me to spit! [Michelangelo Buonorotti]

— Irving Stone

From this vantage point he came to a realization that everything that had happened to him before this had been a journey upward through time, everything that occurred after it a descent. If he could not control his fate, why be born?

— Irving Stone

He believed that every individual was responsible for his conduct on earth, that there was a judge within. Could even a blazingly Christ inflict greater retribution? Could Dante's Charon in his rowboat on the river Acheson whips the miscreants into a deeper, more everlasting hell than man's unvarnished verdict of himself?

— Irving Stone

He had been standing still; for an artist, one of the more painful forms of death.

— Irving Stone

He had never believed that spirituality had to be anemic or aesthetic.

— Irving Stone

He was a victim of his own integrity, which forced him to do his best, even when he would have preferred to do nothing at all.

— Irving Stone

It's freezing up here. What did you use to keep warm?"" Indignation," said Michelangelo. "Best fuel I know. Never burns out.

— Irving Stone