The Art Quotes

There was no point in doing art if you were going to be second-rate.

This walking business is overrated: I mastered the art of doing it when I was quite small, and in any case, what are taxis for?

Those who are waiting for an epiphany to strike may wait forever. The artist simply goes to work, making art, both good and not so good.

I build a painting by putting little marks together-some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts.

Judson Church was a very important place because they believed in art. They also took care of drug addicts. Without the Judson, nothing could have happened.

Without art we live under the illusion that there is only time, and not eternity.

One is also reminded of how, in art, the tortoise so often overtakes the hare.

But it is with a different kind of spell that art deludes you ... it leads you to pay religious honor and worship to images and pictures.

Film really is a collaborative art.

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.

The literary critic, or the critic of any other specific form of artistic expression, may detach himself from the world for as long as the work of art he is contemplating appears to do the same.

Brains cause technology, society, art, science, soap operas, sin. A remarkable set of effects for such a small chunk of coagulated atoms.

It's no fun to be a bluestocking in a family of jockstraps.

I escaped the torture of my childhood home by reading. To this day it is still one of my greatest pleasures.

I have no illusions about my art. I am what the public made me and, consequently, I am not likely to forget my debt to them.

In art, one does not aim for simplicity; one achieves it unintentionally as one gets closer to the real meaning of things.

The work of art expresses precisely those things which do not die. It must do so, however, in a form that bears witness to the artist's own era.

Why write [about my art]? Why not just show the photographs?

I am not brave enough to not pay my income tax and risk going to jail. But I can say rather freely what I want to say with my art.

The dance is the mother of the arts, The dance breaks down the distinction of body & soul.

The art of fiction is freedom of will for your characters.

The artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure.

The picture must all come out of the artist's inside, awareness of forms and figures... It is more than memory. It is the image as it lives in the consciousness, alive like a vision, but unknown.

Since obscenity is the truth of our passion today, it is the only stuff of art -- or almost the only stuff.

The training of the mind is an art. If this can be considered art, one's life is art.

Art goes on in your head. If you said something interesting, that might be a title for a work of art and I'd write it down.

More and more, cultural groups are cross-pollinating, and we're getting much more interesting art as a result.

Coming out of college with a degree in fine arts and painting isn't worth much any more.

There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form; as a reader, I trust a novelist to give me his or her best effort, however flawed.

Poetry offers a way of understanding and expressing existence that is fundamentally different from conceptual thought.

I grew up in a very artistic, cultured home, but without any kind of spirituality. My parents were secular materialists, so I saw art as having an alternate value.

I like science and I love gym. Oh, and I like art, but I'm really bad at it. I'm just a terrible drawer. I can't draw a circle. Even with a ruler, I can't draw a straight line.

Diplomacy is the art of letting the other party have things your way.

All of nature is God's art.

Art has political consequences, which is to say, it reorganizes society and creates constituencies of people around it.

I don't think the government should touch art. Governments are risk averse. They encourage risk-averse personalities to be artists.

I turned myself to face me, but I've never caught a glimpse of how the others must see the faker.

The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, 'then' what do we do?

I just think that fiction that isn't exploring what it means to be human today isn't art.

I have no interest in going on a tour to make money without making new product, new art.

Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny.

In Washington, of course, evading responsibility is an art form, so it is not always easy to tell who's responsible for which mess.

[A person’s] utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value.

Always face your challenges head on and make them your strengths.

My art has nothing to do with servicing collectors, it's for living, for turning on with.

Fine art and pizza delivery: what we do falls neatly in between.

I went to the London Academy Of Music and Dramatic Art and returned to New York where I started my career.

If thou art terrible to manyh, then beware of many.

Before the art of medicine comes the art of belief.

You don't need tons of money to create art. You do need tons of money to be a part of show business. They are two different things.