Quotes About Art

The need to express ourselves at all costs is hard-wired into our brains as deeply as our drive for food or sex.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.

I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.

Great poetry must be admired, because it is great and because it is poetry, and so we admire it.

To contradict, even in little matters, is the supreme necessity of art today.

My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.

But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms.

Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.

It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.

Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to hack post-horses; therefore be advised, let well alone and remember the old Italian proverb: Chi sa più, meno sa—Who knows most, knows least.

Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.

When, for instance, we say that a literary work is good or bad, we are making a value judgment (...) Objective evidence for subjective preferences does not makes the value judgment itself objective, but merely objectifies the preference.

I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.

When a film is reviled, you open a film and people say "Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie." You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say "Oh, they hated your film." You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares.

I know what I think but I don't know how to put it into words. Maybe I could get a little bit drunk and dance it for you.

You can't control life. It doesn't wind up perfectly. Only . . . only art you can control. Art and masturbation. Two areas in which I am an absolute expert.

If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right.

If my films make one more person miserable, I'll feel I have done my job.

Does art imitate life, or does life imitate TV?

Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.

For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings...

Questo è l'arte: saper interpretare lo spirito del proprio tempo, saper cogliere il vento del cambiamento e prendere il largo a gonfie vele.

Art is the expression of an enormous preference.

The art of advertisement, after the American manner, has introduced into all our life such a lavish use of superlatives, that no standard of value whatever is intact.