Studying literature and quotations of individuals is a good way of learning more about them. With artists, it helps us to understand more about the mind behind the work. Having lived a turbulent life, Frida certainly took plenty of knocks along the way and some of the quotes featured here reveal the strong personality that developed over time.
Famous Quotes by Frida Kahlo
At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.
I drank to drown my sorrows, but the damned things learned how to swim.
I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.
I love you more than my own skin and even though you don't love me the same way, you love me anyways, don't you? And if you don't, I'll always have the hope that you do, and i’m satisfied with that. Love me a little. I adore you.
I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.
Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?
I am not sick. I am broken. But, i am happy to be alive as long as i can paint.
I cannot speak of Diego as my husband because that term, when applied to him, is an absurdity. He never has been, nor will he ever be, anybody’s husband.
I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.
I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return.
I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I'm here, and I’m just as strange as you.
I was born a bitch. I was born a painter.
I wish I could do whatever I liked behind the curtain of "madness". Then: I'd arrange flowers, all day long, I'd paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: "Poor thing, she’s crazy!" (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.) I would build my world which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds. The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else's - my madness would not be an escape from "reality".
My painting carries with it the message of pain.
Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light.
Painting completed my life.
There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the train the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.
They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I paint my own reality.
To paint is the most terrific thing that there is, but to do it well is very difficult.
You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled, with everything and all the reasons that wake you up in a haste and the demons that won’t let you sleep. You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin. You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions. You deserve a lover who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom; who flies with you and isn’t afraid to fall. You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.
You didn’t understand what I am. I am love. I am pleasure. I am essence. I am an idiot. I am alcoholic. I am tenacious. I am. I simply am. You are a sh*t my love.
Quotes about Frida Kahlo by Art Historians and Famous Artists
If I were a painter, I'd be Frida Kahlo.
Madonna, who owns several Frida Kahlo paintings
The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb.
Andre Breton
She painted what she painted because she had to, because she was passionate about it. She didn't care at all if people bought her paintings. As she said, she painted her reality.
Julie Taymor
Frida Kahlo typically uses the visual symbolism of physical pain in a long-standing attempt to better understand emotional suffering. Prior to Kahlo's efforts, the language of loss, death, and selfhood, had been relatively well investigated by some male artists (including Albrecht Dürer, Francisco Goya, and Edvard Munch), but had not yet been significantly dissected by a woman. Indeed not only did Kahlo enter into an existing language, but she also expanded it and made it her own. By literally exposing interior organs, and depicting her own body in a bleeding and broken state, Kahlo opened up our insides to help explain human behaviors on the outside.
TheArtStory.org
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist.
Wikipedia
