Paul Mellon Quotes

Preliminary drawings or sketches in oil or pastel often have an immediacy and emotional appeal far greater than the final canvas.

- Paul Mellon

Within 18 months of my parents' marriage in 1900, my mother fell in love with an Englishman who would have described himself as a gentleman but who was, in fact, nothing more than a devious adventurer.

- Paul Mellon

In a way, my father was lucky. He had a hunch that his vision of the National Gallery would interest other collectors and persuade them to come in with him, and that hunch proved to be right.

- Paul Mellon

College isn't the only answer. Reading is a college that you can and should attend all your life.

- Paul Mellon

It was my father's hope, and it is ours, that the National Gallery would become not a static but a living institution, growing in usefulness and importance to artists, scholars and the general public.

- Paul Mellon

Collecting is the sort of thing that creeps up on you.

- Paul Mellon

There is no intellectual or emotional substitute for the authentic, the original, the unique masterpiece.

- Paul Mellon

Just as there is no substitute for original works of art, there is no substitute for the world of direct sensual experience.

- Paul Mellon

When you give away large sums of money, you can cause as much damage as you may do good.

- Paul Mellon