Quotes About Art

Being a writer of 'literary fiction' means going on and on about something long after the reader has gotten the idea. ...Dan Ahearn

Telling someone about what a symbol means is like telling someone how music should make them feel.

If you can orbit the planet, why can't you see what makes the human heart happy? Is it art or is it sex? Or is it, as I suspect, just keeping going from next thing to next thing to next thing to next thing to next to next to next to next pulsating stupidly to outlast time?

The fable of the Emperor's New Clothes is brought up time and again, a conspiracy to dupe someone, a pretense designed to make the innocent or gullible look stupid. It's a narcissistic paranoia; most artists don't have the time or money to bother playing such a prank and are far more concerned with spending their days pursuing ideas in the studio, however absurd those ideas may appear to others.

would rather watch a ballet than go to school.

I'm going to finger paint a picture of a tree falling in a forest and crushing a family of happy butterflies until they are dead

I love butterflies," Andrea said. "I'm going to finger paint a picture of a happy family of butterflies." "I'm going to finger paint a picture of a tree in a forest where your butterflies can live," said Emily. "I'm going to finger paint a picture of a tree falling in a forest and crushing a family of happy butterflies until they are dead," I said.

Credits Cover art © 2004 by Jim Paillot.

Cats were considered valuable in ancient Egypt, and they appear in ancient art showing that they were important.

You have a person in a very tiny cell banging himself from one wall to the other and not being able to find any way out of it. What that person can do is talk. Is create a whole balloon of language which would carry him through the ceiling to somewhere else. This is the art. This is what a story is.

This much we know: Journalism is not a precise science. It's, on its best day, is a crude art. We make mistakes I make mistakes. With more than 50 years as a journalist, I have at least had the opportunity to blow more stories, make more mistakes than maybe anybody in television.

Art is an attempt to capture the truths of the world as you see it in a medium you can share with others. It is about lending your voice, your perspective to local, national, and global conversations. And that is why, in the United States in particular, our definition of what is art and who is an artist must be as varied as our citizenry.

The idea of art as "access to independence and happiness" is a notion that speaks to my own experience. In art, you can find voices that channel your own life story better than you could ever express it yourself. And you can also find voices that introduce you to worlds you would never have otherwise visited. In a diverse republic such as ours, both of these inspirations are especially important.

We now understand that the great American story is not confined to history books or political speeches. It is sung, and danced, and dramatized, and turned into verse. It is painted, and sculpted, and written, and filmed. Artists may not swear an oath to serve in government or the military, but they swear an oath to freedom of expression that is no less worthy of recognition, especially in a democracy such as ours.

books were not only important, they were also objects of beauty.

In art, you can find voices that channel your own life story better than you could ever express it yourself. And you can also find voices that introduce you to worlds you would never have otherwise visited.

A lot of people hear it in a dark way, but, I think, without saying the word too many times, it's empowering, and so we wanted to display that in a way that the listener wouldn't see normally." - Dan Reynold

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.

An artist on Esperance had once said to me, "Having sex or a domestic quarrel with the house monitors on is like undressing in front of a dog or cat ... it gives you pause the first time, and then you forget about it.

Words are the only bullets in truth's bandolier. And poets are the snipers.

Every night, half an hour before curtain up, the bells of St. Malachy's, the Actors' Chapel on New York's 49th Street, peal the tune of 'There's No Business Like Show Business.' If you walk the streets of the theatre district before a show and see the vast, enthusiastic lines it sounds like a calling: there is certainly no place like Broadway.

A painting is never finished—it simply stops in interesting places.

traditional histories of art emphasize periods and styles, and focus on Western artistic production, and this can obscure other approaches, for instance the grouping of artworks

This book challenges such traditional ways of seeing and writing about art.