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1 " There is not a single brand of realism. Your paintings can be true to nature but emphasize different aspects of visual truth compared to another artist. The way you paint is a record of how you see. It will still be accepted as realism. This explains why Vermeer or Gérôme are instantly recognizable. Each is attentive to different facts of nature. Those who describe realism as slavish imitation miss this point. "
― James Gurney , Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter
2 " Survival of all or none.One raindrop raises the sea.Weapons are enemies even to their owners.Give more, take less.Others first, self last.Observe, listen, and learn.Do one thing at a time.Sing every day.Exercise imagination.Eat to live, don't live to eat. "
― James Gurney , Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time
3 " 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.” (p. 12) "
― James Gurney , Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist
4 " A moment well spent is the best accomplishment. Yesterday is a phantom and tomorrow a mirage. The only day worth living is this one. If we can do that wekl, the yesterdays and tomorrows take care of themselves "
― James Gurney , Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara
5 " Breathe Deep, Seek Peace. "
6 " I can't imagine,' I said one afternoon after a long silence, 'how it would be possible for such a small island to support enough artists and stonecutters to build all these wonders. And I can't imagine how all these different people get along without quarreling.''Oh, it is possible,' said Nallab, sucking thoughtfully on a mango, 'but only if you DO imagine it... "
7 " You of the west,' Malik said, 'think of time moving in a straight line, from past to present to future. You eastern brothers regard time as a circle, returning endlessly in a cycle of decay and rebirth. Both ideas have a dimension of the truth. If you were to combine geometrically the movement of the circle with the movement of the line, what would you have?' He snapped his mouth shut and peered at me with an uncanny resemblance to my old schoolmaster. 'The spiral?' I ventured.'Yes, yes. Or the helix. They are our models of the passage of time.' he said.'So time moves on, but history repeats itself.''Precisely,' he said "
8 " Time for Kentrosaurus to hatch. Time to plant the millet. Time for the magnolia buds to open. Professor Denison, I'm afraid you persist in thinking of time as numbers. You think of meaningless units of time - weeks, hours, minutes - based on what? Movements of faraway planets? Of what use to us is that? Why not pay attention to the precise 30-year life cycle of the bamboo Guadua trinii or the exactly repeated mitotic cycle of the paramecium? The whole earth has a heartbeat.'He paused, swung his tail from side to side, and squinted. 'And some things happen too slowly for you to notice. If you sit quite still, you can hear the grinding down of mountains, the stretching upward of trees, the pushing forward of continents - indeed the wearing down of this very waterfall. "
