Quotes by J. Carter Brown

Do what you really want to do. That's why God put you on this earth.

Europe, you know, every few feet there is some extraordinary visual or cultural experience. My mentor, Francis Taylor, said, You've got to go to Europe and wash your eyeballs in the stuff. And it's true.

I am deeply aware of the dimension of luck. It's so important to be prepared to receive it, but it is a major factor. There's no question.

I did not major in history of art as an undergraduate, and that was on purpose on the advice of a hero of mine, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum, Francis Henry Taylor, who was just one of the most charismatic people. And I went to see him and ask his advice about preparing for a museum career. So he said, Well first of all, don't major in fine arts.

I found that it wasn't so oddball to like music and poetry and visual arts, they're kindred spirits.

I think everybody has a bent, and the key is to follow that bent. So much human wastage comes from people who are doing things with their lives that they really aren't happy with.

I was driving from the station in Washington, home to Georgetown. My father was working in the government, and I think I must have been 12 years old. I remember it was raining. We passed the National Gallery, and it was - that wonderful pink marble in the rain it gets very rich rose, and... I remember looking up and saying to my parents, That's the kind of job I would like to have some day.

I was hopeless. I was very unathletic, and when I was in school I was two years younger than everybody in my class, so I got beaten up all the time, and I got laughed at for being interested in studying and doing stupid things like that.

No one will understand a Japanese garden until you've walked through one, and you hear the crunch underfoot, and you smell it, and you experience it over time. Now there's no photograph or any movie that can give you that experience.

One thing I really fear is living too long and becoming one of these vegetables and a burden to everybody and to yourself. And so I've had such a rich life, such fabulous opportunities, that I feel, Okay, take it as it comes.

The Washingtonian said it shouldn't be built. The gallery's East Building is now considered a triumph, and members of the American Association of Architects have voted it one of the best buildings of all time.

There are more ways of skinning a cat than rubbing its fur the wrong way.

There's no point breaking a lot of crockery unnecessarily.

We're a spoiled nation of whiners and complainers-meism types. World War II should be our paradigm.