Quotes About Art

Vladimir Nabokov

as if it were a point of honor—which, indeed, a point of art often is.

And yet I shall try again: they are murdering me!--all right, all together once more: they are murdering me! and again: murdering... I want to write this in such a way that you will cover your ears, your membranaceous, simian ears that you hide under strands of beautiful feminine hair--but I know them, I see them, I pinch them, the cold little things, I worry them with my fingers to somehow warm them, bring them to life, render them human, force them to hear me.

I may, if I am lucky, tap the deep pathos that pertains to all authentic art because of the breach between its eternal values and the sufferings of a muddled world -- this world, indeed, can hardly be blamed for regarding literature as a luxury or a toy unless it can be used as an up-to-date guidebook.

sex is but the ancilla of art

Caress the details, the divine details. In high art and pure science detail is everything.

To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute.

The artist, like the scientist, in the process of evolution of art and science, is always casting around, understanding a little more than his predecessor, penetrating further with a keener and more brilliant eye—and this is the artistic result.

I have tried to teach you to read books for the sake of their form, their visions, their art. I have tried to teach you to feel a shiver of artistic satisfaction, to share not the emotions of the people in the book but the emotions of its author — the joys and difficulties of creation. We did not talk around books, about books; we went to the center of this or that masterpiece, to the live heart of the matter.

Come la famiglia universale degli scrittori di talento supera le barriere nazionali, così il lettore dotato è una figura universale, non soggetta a leggi spaziali o temporali. È lui - il buon lettore, l'eccellente lettore - che ha salvato più e più volte l'artista dalla distruzione per mano degli imperatori, dei dittatori, dei preti, dei puritani, dei filistei, dei politici, dei poliziotti, dei direttori delle poste e dei pedanti.

Para mí, una obra e ficción sólo existe en la medida en que me proporciona lo que llamaré lisa y llanamente placer estético, es decir, la sensación de que es algo, en algún lugar, relacionado con otros estados de ser en que el arte (curiosidad, ternura, bondad, éxtasis) es la norma.

We shall do our best to avoid the factual error of looking for so-called real life in novels. Let us not try and reconcile the fiction of facts with the facts of fiction. ... A master piece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.

Such hearts, such brains, would be unable to comprehend that one's attachment to a masterpiece may be utterly overwhelming.

Anything that is not necessary to the painting damages it. Henri Matisse

If there is some red spot on one of my paintings it is unlikely to be the heart of the work. The painting was done regardless of it. You could remove the red and still the painting would be there. But in Matisse's work it is inconceivable that you could remove a spot of red, no matter how small without the entire painting instantly collapsing.' Pablo Picasso

Letting go of judgments, the art of creating images and "letting it happen" are three of the basic skills involved in the Inner Game.

Relaxed concentration is the supreme art because no art can be achieved without it, while with it, much can be achieved. One cannot reach the limit of one's potential in tennis or any endeavor without learning it; what is even more compelling is that tennis can be a marvelous medium through which skill in focus of mind can be developed. By learning to focus while playing tennis, one develops a skill that can heighten performance in every other aspect of life.

inner skills, chiefly the art of letting go of self-judgments, letting Self 2 do the hitting, recognizing and trusting the natural learning process, and above all gaining some practical experience in the art of relaxed concentration.

The backhand can be used to advantage only on a tennis court, but the skill of mastering the art of effortless concentration is invaluable in whatever you set your mind to.

A MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN MY ATTEMPTS TO UNDERSTAND THE art of relaxed concentration came when, while teaching, I again began to notice what was taking place before my eyes.

The message of the Inner Game is simple: focus. Focus of attention in the present moment, the only one you can really live in, is at the heart of this book and at the heart of the art of doing anything well.

Poetry is the human soul entire Squeezed like a lemon or a lime, Drop by drop into atomic words".

Why did white folks think you could live on nothing but art? Strange! Too strange! Too strange!

Of course Covarrubias wasn't a negro, but how he caught the darky spirit!