Quotes About Art

I will write, she had said, what I enjoy writing.

They never saw him drawing pictures of them naked at their antics in his notebook.

I prefer, where truth is important, to write fiction.

But there is one peculiarity which real works of art possess in common. At each fresh reading one notices some change in them, as if the sap of life ran in their leaves, and with skies and plants they had the power to alter their shape and colour from season to season. To write down one's impressions of Hamlet as one reads it year after year, would be virtually to record one's own autobiography, for as we know more of life, so Shakespeare comments upon what we know.

And then there it was, suddenly entire shaped in her hands, beautiful and reasonable, clear and complete, the essence sucked out of life and held rounded here - the sonnet.

They are very large in effect, these painters; very little self-conscious; they have smooth broad spaces in their minds where I am all prickles & promontories.

There are one or two people I'm fond of, and there's a little good music, and a few pictures, now and then—just enough to keep one dangling about here. Ah, but I couldn't live with savages! Are you fond of books? Music? Pictures? D'you care at all for first editions? I've got a few nice things up here, things I pick up cheap, for I can't afford to give what they ask.

What she said in To the Lighthouse of Lily Briscoe's art she might have said of her own: that the pen was 'the one dependable thing in a world of strife, ruin, chaos . . .',73 and the godlike power she felt as a writer is perfectly embodied in a passage from that novel.

Why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? What effect has poverty on fiction? What conditions are necessary for the creation of works of art?—a

Knitting is the saving of life.

Knitting her reddish-brown hairy stocking, with her head outlined absurdly by the gilt frame, the green shawl which she had tossed over the edge of the frame, and the authenticated masterpiece by Michael Angelo, Mrs. Ramsay smoothed out what had been harsh in her manner a moment before, raised his head, and kissed her little boy on the forehead. Let us find another picture to cut out, she said.

I want to write nothing in this book that I don't enjoy writing. Yet writing is always difficult.

she makes me feel as if language is miserably insufficient. broken.

que como aficionados se nos ha negado toda instrucción en ese arte; que lo que sabemos lo hemos aprendido nosotros mismos; y que imprimimos en los ratos libres de una vida que dedicamos a otras cosas.

It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment.

Kendisi tek bir ÅŸeyi deÄŸil, her ÅŸeyi söylemek istiyordu. An?n bask?s?, tela?? insana her zaman hedefini ÅŸa??rt?yordu. Sözcükler telaÅŸ ve heyecanla yanlara kaç?yor, istenilen hedefe ulaÅŸam?yordu. Ä°nsan, bedenin bu heyecanlar?n?, sözcüklerle nas?l anlatabilirdi? Aradaki boÅŸluÄŸu nas?l anlatabilirdi? Duyumsayan insan?n zihni deÄŸil, bedeni idi.

la novela es como una telaraña ligada muy sutilmente, pero al fin y al cabo ligada a la vida por los cuatro costados.

No, delightful as the pastime of measuring be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes. So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.

Ma Peter - non importa quanto fosse bella la giornata, e gli alberi e l'erba, e la fanciulla vestita di rosa - Peter non vedeva mai nulla. Se lei glielo chiedeva, si metteva gli occhiali; guardava. Ma era lo stato del mondo che gli interessava: Wagner, la poesia di Pope, il carattere della gente, e i difetti dell'anima di lei.

O verde na natureza é uma coisa, o verde na literatura é outra. A natureza e as letras parecem ter uma antipatia visceral; junte as duas, e se estraçalham mutuamente.

The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.

Kifejezéseket és újra csak kifejezéseket kell gyártanom, hogy valami szilárd dolgot iktassak a szobalányok tekintete, az órák tekintete, az arcok tekintete és magam közé, különben sírni fogok.

Szerelem ez, gondolta Lily, ahogy mintha vásznával bíbelÅ'dött volna, párolt és lesz?rt szerelem; szerelem, mely tárgyát megragadni sosem akarná; szerelem, amit matematikusok éreznek képleteik, költÅ'k verssoraik iránt, és mintha az lett volna a célja ennek a szerelemnek, hogy a világon szétoszolva az emberüdv része legyen.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art; Annie Dillard and Cort Conley, eds., Modern American Memoirs; Patricia Hampl, I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory; Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life; Phillip Lopate, ed., The Art of the Personal Essay; Jane Taylor McDonnell, Living to Tell the Tale: A Guide to Writing Memoir; and William Zinsser, ed., Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir.