Leonora Carrington, a British painter and novelist, was a central figure in the Surrealist movement known for her dreamlike artworks and unconventional life. Born in 1917 in England, she studied at the Chelsea School of Art before meeting Surrealist artist Max Ernst, with whom she fell in love and moved to Paris. Their relationship greatly influenced her work, which explored themes of magic and the unconscious mind. During World War II, Carrington and Ernst fled to the United States before settling in Mexico City after their relationship ended. In Mexico, Carrington thrived as an artist, producing iconic works that reflected her interest in mythology and the supernatural. She also excelled as a writer, publishing novels and short stories, including the acclaimed “The Hearing Trumpet.” Carrington’s unique blend of talent and rebellious spirit left a lasting impact on the art world. She passed away in 2011, leaving behind a rich legacy of creativity and innovation.

Leonora Carrington Quotes

1. “I’ve always had access to other worlds. We all do because we dream.”
— Leonora Carrington

2. “I warn you, I refuse to be an object.”
— Leonora Carrington

3. “Art is a magic which makes the hours melt away and even days dissolve into seconds.”
— Leonora Carrington

4. “Military people never seem to apologize for killing each other yet novelists feel ashamed for writing some nice inert paper book that is not certain to be read by anybody.”
— Leonora Carrington

5. “There are things that are not sayable. That’s why we have art.”
— Leonora Carrington

6. “One has to be careful what one takes when one goes away forever.”
— Leonora Carrington

7. “We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.”
— Leonora Carrington

8. “Reason must know the heart’s reasons and every other reason.”
— Leonora Carrington

9. “Sentimentality is a form of fatigue.”
— Leonora Carrington

10. “How can anybody be a person of quality if they wash away their ghosts with common sense?”
— Leonora Carrington

11. “The task of the right eye is to peer into the telescope, while the left eye peers into the microscope.”
— Leonora Carrington

12. “Thousands of people know my flannel knickers, and though I know this may seem flirtatious, it is not. I am a saint.”
— Leonora Carrington

13. “I saw the reflection of the moon in the water, but was horrified to see there was no moon in the sky: the moon had been drowned in the water.”
— Leonora Carrington

14. “People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats.”
— Leonora Carrington

15. “I am never lonely, Galahad. Or rather I never suffer from loneliness. I suffer much from the idea that my loneliness might be taken away from me by a lot of mercilessly well-meaning people.”
— Leonora Carrington

16. “I often feel I am being burned at the stake just because I have always refused to give up that wonderful strange power I have inside me that becomes manifested when I am in harmonious communication with some other inspired being.”
— Leonora Carrington

17. “Painting is my vehicle of transit. I don’t always know where I am going or what it means.”
— Leonora Carrington

18. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I won a helicopter in a crossword puzzle competition? There is not much hope though I am afraid, as they never give such practical prizes.”
— Leonora Carrington

19. “The hyena found it difficult to walk in my high-heeled shoes.”
— Leonora Carrington

20. “I never eat meat as I think it is wrong to deprive animals of their life when they are so difficult to chew anyway.”
— Leonora Carrington

21. “Ring for your maid, and when she comes in we’ll pounce upon her and tear off her face. I’ll wear her face tonight instead of mine.”
— Leonora Carrington

22. “My head is a bier for my thoughts, my body a coffin.”
— Leonora Carrington

23. “I think she was mistaken when she said I was torturing myself. I think that she interpreted me fragmentarily, which is worse than not to interpret at all.”
— Leonora Carrington

24. “Beauty is a responsibility like anything else, beautiful women have special lives like prime ministers but I don’t want that.”
— Leonora Carrington

25. “There is nobody that can make you happy, you must take care of this matter yourself.”
— Leonora Carrington

26. “The skeleton was as happy as a madman whose straitjacket had been taken off.”
— Leonora Carrington

27. “If I remember correctly writers usually find some excuse for their books, although why one should excuse oneself for having such a quiet and peaceful occupation I really don’t know. Military people never seem to apologize for killing each other yet novelists feel ashamed for writing some nice inert paper book that is not certain to be read by anybody.”
— Leonora Carrington

28. “With shrieks of adoration it flung itself on human breasts, ‘to crush you, to suck your life away. I cannot drag my own weight over the crust of the earth so you must carry me on your back so that in time you will be crippled with my weight.’ These words are in every heart in the mating season.”
— Leonora Carrington

29. “Do not fear those who bear you ill will, they soon shall fall in shame,” read Georgina, cackling with mirth.”
— Leonora Carrington

30. “Virginia returned home, followed by the cats. There, in the kitchen, she gave birth to seven little boars. Out of sentiment she kept the one most like Igname, and boiled the others for herself and the cats, as a funeral feast.”
— Leonora Carrington

31. “Darling stop being philosophical it doesn’t suit you, it makes your nose red.”
— Leonora Carrington

32. “Houses are really bodies. We connect ourselves with walls, roofs, and objects just as we hang on to our livers, skeletons, flesh and bloodstream. I am no beauty, no mirror is necessary to assure me of this absolute fact. Nevertheless I have a death grip on this haggard frame as if it were the limpid body of Venus herself.”
— Leonora Carrington

33. “I unscrewed my own scrap of paper and read out: “Help! I am prisoner in the tower.”
— Leonora Carrington

34. “Her dressing gown was made of live bats sewn together by their wings: the way they fluttered, one would have thought they didn’t much like it.”
— Leonora Carrington

35. “My soul?” replied Virginia. “I sold it a long time ago for a kilo of truffles.”
— Leonora Carrington

36. “A Brotherhood with the grim knowledge of what is better for other people and the iron determination to better them whether they like it or not.”
— Leonora Carrington

37. “I am sure it would be very pleasant and healthy for human beings to have no authority whatever. They would have to think for themselves, instead of always being told what to do and think by advertisements, cinemas, policemen, and parliaments.”
— Leonora Carrington

38. “On the outskirts of our sad savage town, I was overcome by a feeling of profound melancholy, though I fought it off by stuffing a large amount of jasmine essence up my nose.”
— Leonora Carrington

39. “For years I have been a prisoner of the people of the set now called the Watchers. These great hypnotists have no idols, their magic is powerful and their appetite insatiable. They thrive on misery, but have great delicacy in choosing their victims. They evoke compassion but have none themselves. They possess unlimited knowledge but have no understanding, and this gives them the power of absolute, concentrated hate.”
— Leonora Carrington

40. “Of course, she had to put up with being insulted by the cats at times, but she insulted them back just as loudly and in the same language.”
— Leonora Carrington

41. “Do not fear those who bear you ill will, they soon shall fall in shame.”
— Leonora Carrington

42. “If you are in a condition of inferiority, I think it affects you very much creatively. You have incredible visions but you might be too bashful to show them. Your creativity becomes inhibited. I’ve always found women as individuals as stupid or as intelligent as men. I’ve never had any reason to find them otherwise.”
— Leonora Carrington

43. “Every mistake we make in these dances must be turned into a question, otherwise they are fatal to our human condition.”
— Leonora Carrington

44. “The Antichrists are antichristing each other with antichristly ferocity so I must go and make peace.”
— Leonora Carrington

45. “I went on dancing in my grotesque disguise, but not before I told him: “I am lonely and miserable but I am wearing my last skin. Since you are almost face to face with the Gods do not abandon me.” In human language, this is called love.”
— Leonora Carrington

46. “This is the really incomprehensible side of humanity, people never have time for anything.”
— Leonora Carrington

47. “Isn’t it enough that the world is full of ugly human beings without making copies of them?”
— Leonora Carrington

48. “People only like whatever concerns themselves and I am no exception to this rule.”
— Leonora Carrington

49. “Cast down by sadness, I walked far into the mountains where the cypresses grew so pointed one would have taken them for arms, where the brambles had thorns as big as claws.”
— Leonora Carrington

50. “This secluded spot was the haunt of thousands of honey bees that zimmed all through the warm days at their business. I could sit amongst the bees for hours on end and feel happy, although why they pleased me so I cannot tell.”
— Leonora Carrington