Quotes About Art

There's a kind of a fundamental irresponsibility in playwriting, and the strength of playwriting comes from that irresponsibility.

As much as I hate his movies, Oliver Stone has an aspiration I admire, and that is that he wants his art to be part of what makes and changes public policy and cultural practice.

Artists know that diligence counts as much, if not more, as inspiration in art, as in politics, patience counts as much as revolution.

People shouldn't trust artists and they shouldn't trust art. Part of the fun of art is that it invites you to interpret it.

I write plays and movies, I live and work at the borderline between word and image just as any cartoonist or illustrator does. I'm not a pure writer. I use words as the score for kinetic imagistic representations.

You have to have hope. It's irresponsible to give false hope, which I think a lot of playwrights are guilty of. But I also think it's irresponsible to simply be a nihilist, which quite a lot of playwrights, especially playwrights younger than me, have become guilty of.

Be splendid tonight, be focused, have fun, make theater: That's our way of repudiating the bullies, the killjoys, the busybodies and blowhards. We know the secret of making art, while they only know the minor secret of making mischief. We proceed from joy; they only have their misery. -fax to Charlotte Rep, March 20, 1996

We know the secret of making art, while they only know hte minor secret of making mischief. We proceed from joy, they only have their misery.

You have to have hope. It's irresponsible to give false hope, which I think a lot of playwrights are guilty of. But I also think it's irresponsible to simply be a nihilist, which quite a lot of playwrights, especially playwrights younger than me, have become guilty of.

El arte es la ciencia de lo inútil.

La música es la más inútil, biológicamente hablando, de todas las Artes, y, por ello, por su pavorosa y radical inutilidad, es la más grande de todas ellas; la menos irracional, la más intelectual, la más espiritual, la más humana, en tanto que esto signifique superación de los seres inferiores

Todo eso que está inútilmente añadido a la pura necesidad, es arte.

El arte es tanto más sublime cuanto mayor es su inutilidad.

Of course it's almost ludicrously difficult to talk about art. And about beauty. Beauty is a perversion--how can you retain your self-respect when you talk about it?

Books don't need to be published," Lars Högström said. "The main thing is that they should be written.

Music is always a reflection of what's going on in the hearts and minds of the culture.

I've got tonnes of aboriginal and Native American art, but I'd like even more.

We don't often see our own stories. Good artists are the ones that whisper our own stories back to us.

Every artist is born in a place, within a family, and though she may leave those sources far behind, they remain within her.

And is it right butterfly? They like you better framed and dried.

The songs don't spring whole into existence; they are built.

Although I am basically self taught, I consider Debussy my teacher - the most important elements are colour, light and shadow.

I am alone all day, I read a little but it gives me a headache. I draw and I paint, as much as I can, so much so that my hand gets tired and when it begins to get dark I wait to see if Jeanne d'Armagnac [one of the cousins] will come and sit by my bed. She comes sometimes and tries to distract me and play with me, and I listen to her speak without daring to look at her, she is so tall and so beautiful! And I am neither tall nor beautiful.

Even though no one else cares for my poems, I have to write them because it dulls the sorrow and longing in my heart.