Quotes About Art

Writing is a little bit like prostitution. First you do it for love. Then you do it for a few friends. Then you do it for money.

C'est un parleur étrange, et qui trouve toujours L'art de ne vous rien dire avec de grands discours.

La musique est accoutumée à ne point faire ce qu'on veut.

Ur. It is strange in you gentlemen poets that you always condemn the pieces which every one runs after, and speak well only of those which no one goes to see. You display an unconquerable hatred for the one, and an inconceivable tenderness for the others.

He's a wonderful talker, who has the art of telling you nothing in a great harangue.

Maybe da Vinci didn't serve lamb in his painting of the Last Supper, but there was room for interpretation. Jesus himself was the lamb led to the slaughter.

To begin with she taught me how to tease wool, the process of preparing it for spinning. I learned to pull the wool off the fleece, take out the dirty and tangled bits, part the wool between my fingers until it was of even texture, and then comb it into delicate little rolls. "It's the preparation that counts in spinning," Anghard said. "If you are lazy about that you will never spin an even thread."... ..."Wool is a living thing," she said once.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent.

I am with fire between my teeth and still nothing but my blank page.

One is a writer, or one is not.

My art and profession is to live.

Failure and its accompanying misery is for the artist his most vital source of creative energy.

McGough: I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've caught poetry. Mr Bones: Oh really? Well, don't worry, sir - I used to suffer from short stories. McGough: Really? When? Mr Bones: Oh, once upon a time ...

There are no contests in the Art of Peace. A true warrior is invincible because he or she contests with nothing. Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within.

El camino de un guerrero, el arte de la política, es detener los problemas antes de que comiencen. Consiste en derrotar a tus adversarios espiritualmente haciéndolos entender la ridiculez de sus acciones. El Camino del Guerrero es el de establecer armonía

Practice of the Art of Peace is an act of faith, a belief in the ultimate power of nonviolence

In the art of peace, a single cut of the sword summons up the wondrous powers of the universe. That one sword links the past, present, and future; it absorbs the universe. Time and space disappear. All of creation, from the distant past to the present moment, lives in the sword. All human existence flourishes right here in the sword you hold in your hands. You are now prepared for anything that may arise.

The Art of Peace is the principle of nonresistance. Because it is nonresistant it is victorious from the beginning. Those with evil intentions or contentious thoughts are instantly vanquished. The Art of Peace is invincible because it contends with nothing.

Art and architecture were a single unit; only later did they take separate courses. (It is curious that today, with all our wealth, our builders cannot afford the decorative beauty customary in the relatively poor Middle Ages.)

The character of a great Gothic church is to be soaring, open, spiritual, defiant of earth's gravity, reaching to heaven, not because of, but "in spite of the stone," as the art historian Wilhelm Worringer has said.

I paint to rest from the phenomena of the external world - to pronounce it -- and to make notations of its essences with which to verify the inner eye.

Art in relation to life is nothing more than a glove turned inside out. It seems to have the same shapes and contours, but it can never be used for the same purpose. Art teaches nothing about life, just as life teaches us nothing about art.

Music's tragedy is that it begins with perfection.

Good art provides people with a vocabulary about things they can't articulate.