Illustration Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old illustration quotes, illustration sayings, and illustration proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

A wisely chosen illustration is almost essential to fasten the truth upon the ordinary mind, and no teacher can afford to neglect this part of his preparation. Howard Crosby
Illustrations can be a big window: a looking glass into the author's imagination. Tony DiTerlizzi
No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He's got to put all his talent and feeling into them! Norman Rockwell
A witty illustration or an apt story will accomplish more than columns of argument. Chauncey Depew
An illustration is a visual editorial - its just as nuanced. Everything that goes into it is a call you make: every color, every line weight, every angle. Charles M. Blow
I was tired of illustration. You'd work so hard on a commission and it would go in to a magazine, and you'd turn the page and it was gone. Richard MacDonald
You have to make thousands and thousands of drawings before an illustration is perfected. Richard MacDonald
Illustration is commercial. It's work that we produce, and I think what you can do is you can draw from the pool of art, but most of it comes from a pool of knowledge. Brian Stelfreeze
Illustrations have as much to say as the text. The trick is to say the same thing, but in a different way. It's no good being an illustrator who is saying a lot that is on his or her mind, if it has nothing to do with the text. . . the artist must override the story, but he must also override his own ego for the sake of the story. Maurice Sendak
The illustration which solves one difficulty by raising another, settles nothing. Horace
My life is an open book. With illustrations. Hugh Hefner
There is no line between fine art and illustration; there is no high or low art; there is only art, and it comes in many forms. James Gurney
We may smile at these matters, but they are melancholy illustrations. Joseph Howe
Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you. Marsha Norman
A picture should be a re-creation of an event rather than an illustration of an object; but there is no tension in the picture unless there is a struggle with the object. Francis Bacon