Welcome to our collection of illuminating lighting quotes! Lighting plays a pivotal role in setting the ambiance, mood, and tone of any space. From the soft glow of candlelight to the vibrant hues of neon signs, the right lighting can transform ordinary surroundings into extraordinary experiences. Throughout history, artists, designers, and thinkers have waxed poetic about the power and beauty of light, offering insights that inspire and captivate.
In this curated selection of quotes, you’ll find wisdom from a diverse array of voices, each celebrating the enchanting allure of illumination. Whether it’s shedding light on creativity, enlightenment, or the simple joys of everyday life, these quotes illuminate the profound impact that lighting can have on our perceptions and emotions. So, whether you’re seeking inspiration for your next design project, looking to add a touch of brilliance to your home, or simply appreciate the magic of light, delve into these luminous words and let them spark your imagination. Stay tuned for a radiant collection of quotes on lighting below!
I am fortunate to stay at lots of lovely hotels when I’m on tour, but my favourite hotel group in Britain is Malmaison. I recently stayed at the Malmaison in Manchester, which was pretty amazing. It had a fabulous bar and restaurants, as well as fantastic rooms with mood lighting. Olly Murs
There are bound to be differences in any artistic collaboration with landscape elements, or theater, of lighting elements. Michael Arad
Things will only improve when the people – all of us – say to authorities, ‘I will hold you responsible.’ We should all be showing up at city council meetings, lighting up every community with activism and mobilization. Erin Brockovich
I’m a firm believer that lighting affects mood, and twinkly lights on strings bring something magical to occasions ranging from concerts to weddings, though I’m fond of using them as year-round home decor. Erin Morgenstern
In opera, everyone’s watching from a fixed viewpoint, and that really challenges you. Lighting, the sets, stage groupings, the music-but doesn’t relate too much to film. Bruce Beresford
The first and most natural way of lighting the houses of the American colonists, both in the North and South, was by the pine-knots of the fat pitch-pine, which, of course, were found everywhere in the greatest plenty in the forests. Alice Morse Earle
In primary school when I was 6-7 years old, I always go to theater with my uncle, and I don’t know why I like the atmosphere, dark only. The screen has some lighting, that kind of things, you can see the movie star and so that’s why I like movies. Andrew Lau
Well, there’s this culture on Instagram where everyone uses filters and lighting, or people smooth their skin out. It’s this weird thing. We all know it’s not real and we all complain about it, yet we all do it. Nina Nesbitt
Although there was a point with the Tijuana Brass where we were playing for such huge crowds that I kind of lost contact. At one point, the only connection I had with the audience was with people out there lighting cigarettes. Herb Alpert
All that attention to the perfect lighting, the perfect this, the perfect that, I find terribly annoying. Meryl Streep
There are 10,000 local governments in the state of New York. Ten thousand! Town, village, lighting district, water district, sewer district, a special district to count the other districts in case you missed a district. Andrew Cuomo
I’ve seen terrorism close up, but I don’t live in a state of terror at all. I’m comfortable going to the Manhattan Thanksgiving Day Parade, the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, Times Square on New Years Eve. For perspective, the world today is a safer place than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Airlift, World War II. Douglas Brunt
I always recommend rewiring vintage lighting. It’s not a bargain if your house burns down. Lara Spencer
I like to be working and moving – the worst thing you can do to me is stick me in a room all day while you’re lighting a shot. That just kills me. Robert Carlyle
I find great lighting and a squint of the eyes makes anyone look better. Cat Deeley
The killer app that got the world ready for appliances was the light bulb. So the light bulb is what wired the world. And they weren’t thinking about appliances when they wired the world. They were really thinking about – they weren’t putting electricity into the home. They were putting lighting into the home. Jeff Bezos
The great photographers of life – like Diane Arbus and Walker Evans and Robert Frank – all must have had some special quality: a personality of nurturing and non-judgment that frees the subjects to reveal their most intimate reality. It really is what makes a great photographer, every bit as much as understanding composition and lighting. Caleb Deschanel
A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories. Honore de Balzac
Put every light you have on a dimmer. Because after a certain age, we can play with the lighting and set it on how you look best on it. It’s cheaper than plastic surgery. Bryan Batt
When I was studying photography, I became interested in conflict photojournalism, and that got me interested in lighting. Then I realized there was this amazing thing called cinematography where you could kind of tell more complete stories photographing for film. So I ended up going to AFI grad school for that. Rachel Morrison
Since the beginning of HQ Trivia, when only 48 people logged in, the chat section was lighting up with comments such as ‘This is so cool!’ So, we hooked those early users with alluring graphics and sound, a fast-paced test of wits, interactivity with a live and entertaining host, and the lure of winning free money. Scott Rogowsky
People used to believe only a professional could do tiling or install track lighting. That’s utter nonsense. Bernard Marcus
Life is unpredictable, and I feel, to some extent, lighting and cinematography should be a reflection of that. Rachel Morrison
It’s more fun if you can control things like lighting and make special effects in the darkroom. Lacey Chabert
I played around with the flowers and the lighting, so that was a good way to educate myself. Robert Mapplethorpe
There’s nothing worse than an ostentatious shot. Or some lighting that draws attention to itself, and you might go, ‘Oh, wow, that’s spectacular.’ Or that spectacular shot, a big crane move, or something. Roger Deakins
The LED light bulb is more than ten times the efficiency of regular incandescent lighting, so it can save the world hundreds of billions of dollars in electricity costs. Shuji Nakamura
I once looked like Norman Mailer in a picture with bad lighting. Danielle Steel
Stargate by far is the top of the pile when it comes to Sci-Fi. The quality is great. They have really good writers, production design, lighting, wardrobe. Corin Nemec
Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure. Douglas Coupland
With a book I am the writer and I am also the director and I’m all of the actors and I’m the special effects guy and the lighting technician: I’m all of that. So if it’s good or bad, it’s all up to me. George R. R. Martin
I remember the noise of the bells ringing at school as the effigy of Guy Fawkes we’d prepared earlier was carried out on a canvas stretcher, hoisted on to the huge bonfire and set alight. Then the revelry would begin. My school friends and I would all have sparklers we passed around, lighting one from another. Pippa Middleton
I do like being in front of the camera more and more. Having experience behind it has taught me about lighting and angles, how to move, and what looks good and what doesn’t. Bella Hadid
A whopping 89 percent of buyers start their home search online. How your house looks online is the modern equivalent of ‘curb appeal.’ Rent a wide-angle lens and good lighting, get rid of your clutter and post at least eight great photos to win the beauty contest. Barbara Corcoran
Usually, if you notice good cinematography, then the cinematographer’s failing. I try to make light feel like it’s always motivated and natural in some way and hope that the lighting goes unnoticed. Rachel Morrison
Theatre is about people, not buildings. Incalculable damage has been done to the expert talent a company needs – from wardrobe to lighting technicians. Edward Hall
Everyone was very deeply involved in the world of ‘The Lord of the Rings’. From the wardrobe department to lighting, all were fascinated with the story. This is something that does not happen usually. Sean Bean
Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting. Alan Dean Foster
The putting on of vestments and lighting candles, it’s a wonderful ritual that never changes from one Mass to another. Liam Neeson
You can’t work in the movies. Movies are all about lighting. Very few filmmakers will concentrate on the story. You get very little rehearsal time, so anything you do onscreen is a kind of speed painting. John Malkovich
TV, it’s a director’s medium, and they wanna make it look interesting. To be rehearsing mostly for the sake of where you’re standing so they can do the lighting, that’s what I don’t like. Janeane Garofalo
I love using gas grills because they are easier to heat and it’s much easier to control the flames with a gas grill than with a charcoal fire. Grilling is not just about lighting a fire. Bobby Flay
Usually I design the lighting and when I have the physical set there, I’m not good at going out loosely and saying, ‘Do you what you want, give it to the editor, and he’ll figure it out.’ I physically then walk on with the actors and I say, ‘Let’s walk until you guys feel the space works for you, and tell me when all that happens.’ Tarsem Singh
I would play my Dungeons and Dragons songs and watch people’s eyes glaze over, and then I would start joking around between songs, and all of a sudden people were lighting up and engaging. Josh Tillman
I didn’t know I was doing film noir, I thought they were detective stories with low lighting! Marie Windsor
My dad’s a lighting director. Growing up in Hollywood, I was around the entertainment industry all the time. I knew I’d end up in show business in some capacity, eventually. Meghan Markle
Whether it was working on theatre sets or stage lighting, I didn’t realize most all of the skills I was exposed to were going to come in handy later on when I became a designer. Douglas Wilson
Two subsequent incidents of import established CNN: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, which CNN was the only network to cover as it happened, and the 1991 Gulf War, which CNN chronicled round the clock from a proximity as irresistible as it was alarming, bomb blasts and gunfire lighting up TV screens from coast to coast. Steve Erickson
‘Women’s’ war has its own colors, its own smells, its own lighting, and its own range of feelings. There are no heroes and incredible feats; there are simply people who are busy doing inhumanly human things. Svetlana Alexievich
On TV, you have wardrobe fittings, you have four cameras on you at all times, and you’re worried about your angles and your lighting and your shots. Demi Lovato
One of the things that’s interesting to me is I find things like caffeine and stunts actually relax me. When they’re putting a bit of gel on my arm and lighting me on fire, or when I’m about to go into a high-speed car chase or rev a motorcycle up pretty fast, I find everything else around me slows down. Nicolas Cage
I love lamps. I can’t stand overhead lighting. I have to have everything on a dimmer. Kate Spade
I enjoy creating lamps because lighting really changes my mood. Rohit Saraf
Throughout my pictures I employ a lighting which is not naturalistic. Douglas Sirk
Like Godfather, you look at a movie like that, or something that James Gray has directed, a film with minimal or pin lighting as opposed to everything being lit bright and flat, where everything is evident. Bill Sienkiewicz
I ran spotlight. Swept up. Did box office. Ran the lighting board. But acting was the most fun. Tim Robbins
Even with cameras being very cheap, one thing that researchers noticed was that you look really bad in a videoconference image because the lighting is bad and you get shadows and things. Bill Gates
I’m the one who gets called up about a problem. I’m the one who gets called up about the street lighting and the abandoned car. I’m the one who gets blamed if the police don’t arrive. I’m the one they blame if a city truck is broken down. Richard M. Daley
Imparting knowledge is only lighting other men’s candles at our lamp without depriving ourselves of any flame. Jane Porter
The most awful museums are in China. They have magnificent stuff on display and just the worst way of displaying it. They just don’t spend money on lighting and installation. Elliott Erwitt
Linear narrative is an artfully-directed telling of a story, where the lighting and the sound is all for a very clear purpose. You’re not just wandering around in the world. Edwin Catmull
Specialization makes it easy to forget about the filth of the coal-fired power plant that is lighting this pristine computer screen, or the backbreaking labor it took to pick the strawberries for my cereal, or the misery of the hog that lived and died so I could enjoy my bacon. Michael Pollan
I worked on ‘Sarah Connor’ even longer than ‘Firefly.’ And I always remembered how generous everyone was to me when I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t know the rules, and I didn’t know camera angles, and I didn’t know lighting. Summer Glau
I’m the kind of person who likes to create the environment and mindset – not because I do it deliberately, but because that’s how I like to live – where, from catering to makeup to hair to wardrobe, electricians, camera department lighting, sound, you know, it’s our movie; we’re together, and we have that camaraderie and that closeness. Steven Rodney McQueen
If you take 2001: A Space Odyssey as an example of somebody who creates a new language in film by what he was able to accomplish with art direction, photography, lighting, etc., it is still a gold standard for science fiction. Matthew Modine
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. William Butler Yeats
People imagine that there are rituals, like lighting candles or sacrificing chickens. They really just want to know what the magic formula is for writing. I inevitably disappoint them by saying you just put your butt in the chair, and you write 500 words a day, and then you get up and repeat it the next morning. John Scalzi
Sometimes I take the watch, or I take the shoes, but usually the souvenir is to take the life you had with those directors, or the crew – the camera person, the lighting person. When you finish a film it’s like a little death. You had a family for a bit, and you finish the movie and you probably will never see each other again. Jean Reno
As an actor you become that lighting rod between the person who made the play and the audience. Christopher Walken
My work is made on lines similar to those of a film production. A lot of my work is kind of bureaucratic, endlessly phoning up people, trying to find the cameraman and the lighting man, because I am a total technology-phobe, quite helpless with equipment. Sam Taylor-Johnson
A choreographer deals with the movement that you create, and with a creative director it’s about the story, the stage, the lighting, the costuming, executing someone’s idea, choosing how far to go or how little to go, and blending it so that you feel it, you’re emotionally effected. Laurieann Gibson
There is nothing worse than bright lighting – it isn’t flattering and makes the glamorous women want to leave. Patrick Cox
When shooting in real spaces, the work of a cinematographer begins where location meets production design meets time of day. No movie light will ever look as real as the sun, so scheduling becomes truly paramount to naturalistic lighting. Rachel Morrison
Get the shading right, the lighting right, and there are things you can do to make the CGI look more real. People end up going crazy and give themselves a little too much freedom in how they use CGI, and if you overuse it, it draws attention to itself. Jon Favreau
When you get into your 40s, it’s all about lighting. It’s hard. You have to face whether the way you look is your self-worth or not. Once you get beyond that, it’s all about what’s in your heart. Elisabeth Shue
No, don’t learn at karate schools. They overcharge you for karate uniforms. They make you pay, like, fifty or seventy-five bucks just for a karate uniform, and you don’t wear a uniform in everyday life, so why train in one? Most fights take place outdoors, not inside with perfect lighting and mats. Judah Friedlander
I’m going to insult a whole industry here, but it seems like TV is for people who can’t do film. I’m not talking about actresses; I’m talking about lighting people. Lighting on TV is just so… it’s sinful, it really is. Kevyn Aucoin
I’ve always been interesting in the lighting aspect and always listened to what they were saying. Devon Sawa
There is this church that I go to a lot in New York. I’m not religious but I love lighting candles and stuff. I find it useful. Rufus Wainwright
Higher ceilings allow the use indirect lighting, which is much healthier and reduces glare. Helmut Jahn
The big advantage to playing the Venetian in Las Vegas – where it’s a beautiful theater – is that unlike other places, even many other nice venues, I can do a set and lighting cues, I can put on a real show. I can dress up, wear a tux. Tim Allen
The thing about acting that’s unlike any other art form is that it’s collaborative; directing and acting are a collaboration, and your acting won’t succeed if the lighting design doesn’t succeed or sets don’t succeed. Maya Hawke
You’re telling the story, creating the sets, doing the lighting, the designing, and establishing the pace. Bill Sienkiewicz
I live out of my van, which gives me a first-hand appreciation for power and lighting. A few years ago, I rebuilt the interior of my van to include solar panels and a battery that powers LEDs for lighting and allows me to charge my phone and laptop. Alex Honnold
As a teenager, in my songbook, I used to script what my lighting would be like. I used to dance in my roo;, it was like putting myself in a trance, and making myself feel good about things, almost like a private ceremony of begging people to like you. Mika
Most people went to dance shows, but it was basically a table and a DJ playing and not really a spectacular thing. I brought the whole production with the effects – the best sound, the best lighting to blow the fans away. Tiesto
So much of movie acting is in the lighting. And in loving your characters. I try to know them, and with that intimacy comes love. And now, I love Voldemort. Ralph Fiennes
I am a showman in the traditional sense, but modern, too. I like to use sets and lighting to create magic. Andre Rieu
Filmmaking is a very complex form – ya know, acting, lighting, screenwriting, storytelling, music, editing – all these things have to come together. Jay Duplass
Movies have these transcendent moments where everything is just right, from the dialogue to the music to the lighting to the narrative context; everything is just perfect, and something magical happens – the film breaks through the screen and does something to you. Jason Silva
And my real enemy is not to hold the specimen sterile, but it’s the lighting. The light is our real enemy. So we have to work with very very poor lighting. But we can increase the light with computers. Lennart Nilsson
I was terrified. My first week, walking around in a teeny bikini, I kept crossing my arms over my chest because I was afraid I was going to fall out of the top of the suit. And I didn’t know anything about technique or lighting. Mary Crosby
There are people who expect me to look the way I do on-screen, where I have a great director of photography and fantastic lighting. I’m sorry to disappoint people, but I don’t look like that all the time – no actress does. Catherine Zeta-Jones
You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within. Bob Nelson
I’d hate to be really beautiful on telly and then have everyone go, ‘It’s all make-up and lighting.’ Sophie McShera
I’m involved in everything from highly progressive lighting systems to airline interiors. In the field of transportation I can go from the micro to the macro: architecture, transportation, industrial product design, right across the board. It’s Russian dollism, because they all interrelate: one goes into the other. Ross Lovegrove
Lighting is an essential way to change the mood of a room, especially if you can use dimmers. Thom Filicia
My mother was a free-spirited clinical therapist, and I had the most hard-working father, a television lighting director by trade. My mum raised me to be a global citizen, with eyes open to sometimes harsh realities. Meghan Markle
Lighting is everything. It creates mood and has an emotional effect on you. Zak Bagans
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes – or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face, Lighting a little hour or two – is gone. Omar Khayyam
