Quotes About Art

The Destructive Arts are exactly like Martial Arts, except they don't have uniforms or usefulness and the end result doesn't resemble art in any way.

I've said for years — ever since I figured out how to write Goblin Hero — that it's important to give yourself permission to write crap. Perfection is the destroyer of art. It's paralyzing. Art, whether it's writing or painting or anything else, requires risk. And risk means you're going to make mistakes. Sometimes you're going to fail.

Can we all pause a moment to appreciate the artistry of that sentence? "Sitting casually on the floor, a guard sat..." That's freaking art right there! Someone nominate this thing for the Hugo Award already!

The world he saw on the news came to seem like a genre-fusing farce, its story lines ever less plausible, ever more dispiriting. The world of the chamber, by contrast, was all impressionist masterworks, images and plotlines manifestly finer and more nourishing than what, of late, was passing for the real.

I think of poetry and how I see it as just a raw block of stone ready to be shaped, that way words are never a horrible limit to me, just tools to shape.

There are so many opportunities in life, that the loss of two or three capabilities is not necessarily debilitating. A handicap can give you the opportunity to focus more on art, writing, or music.

I believe we always should consider the context of the art, and we can't ignore or forgive significant moral wrongs at its core—racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, or worse.

Ah but Art never fails anyone, magic and medicine may certainly fail, but never Art.

Standards of beauty change. If Mona Lisa went into a modeling agency today, they'd say, "Sorry, we don't need a janitor."

Being a writer requires an intoxication with language.

The only advice I can give to aspiring writers is don't do it unless you're willing to give your whole life to it. Red wine and garlic also helps.

At the University of Maryland, my first year I started off planning to major in art because I was interested in theatre design, stage design or television design.

Agile project leaders help their team balance at the edge of chaos—some structure, but not too much; adequate documentation, but not too much; some up-front architecture work, but not too much. Finding these balance points is the "art" of agile leadership.

When I make art, I think about its ability to connect with others, to bring them into the process.

I think it comes from really liking literary forms. Poetry is very beautiful, but the space on the page can be as affecting as where the text is. Like when Miles Davis doesn't play, it has a poignancy to it.

If you go into a bar in most places in America and even say the word poetry, you'll probably get beaten up. But poetry is a really strong, beautiful form to me, and a lot of innovation in language comes from poetry.

Music, to me, is the most beautiful form, and I love film because film is very related to music. It moves by you in its own rhythm. It's not like reading a book or looking at a painting. It gives you its own time frame, like music, so they are very connected for me. But music to me is the biggest inspiration. When I get depressed, or anything, I go "think of all the music I haven't even heard yet!" So, it's the one thing. Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you?

LIFE HAS NO PLOT, WHY MUST FILMS OR FICTION?

Paint the painting in front of you- not the one in your head.

But private individuals do not exist in the Soviet Union or in China where the claims of the state are total and even art and literature must be subservient to the interests of the state….

Music inflames temperament.

I think in art, but especially in films, people are trying to confirm their own existences.

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.