David Rockefeller

Much corporate giving is charitable in nature rather than philanthropic.

A museum has to renew its collection to be alive, but that does not mean we give on important old works.

One cannot expect to coast along and rise automatically to the top, no matter what friends you may have in the company. There may have been a time when, in large corporations, a person could rise simply because he had a stock interest or because he had friends in top management. That’s not true today. Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.

By a museum, I assume you mean an institution dedicated to the events of Sept. 11 and the aftermath. If that is done with sensitivity, I think it would be most appropriate.

I owe much to mother. She had an expert’s understanding, but also approached art emotionally.

Only once in my life was I on the edge of incivility.

There is nothing new… everything has roots in the past.

I believe that all creative people have more than one passion, more than one creative talent.

The Japanese have a wonderful sense of design and a refinement in their art. They try to produce beautiful paintings with the minimum number of strokes.

She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me written by an Italian poet from the 13th century and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you.

Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide.

Mother’s interest in contemporary American artists emerged during the 1920s.

There’s no collection that has a better representation of post-war American art than David Geffen’s.

I got more publicity for not doing a festival than for doing the festival.

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.

Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it’s right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of…recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it.

We’re here to bring beauty to the world and make a difference on this planet. That’s what art forms are about.

He knows all about art, but he doesn’t know what he likes.

The conventional notions of art have changed, and a lot of things done today are considered works of art that would have been rejected in the past.

From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as already artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art.

Creative Arts raise a person to another level of consciousness as if you could imagine life before words.