Art Quotes - Page 405

It doesn't take much to be a successful artist-all you need to do is dedicate your entire life to it.

When you go to an art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.

Fewer things are lovelier to me than a full-blown rose when it opens up its heart.

Everything around us that we call life was made up by people that are no smarter than you.

I believe in the city as a natural human environment, but we must humanize it. It's art that will re-define public space in the 21st Century. We can make our cities diverse, inspirational places by putting art, dance and performance in all its forms into the matrix of street life.

Art is both the taking and giving of beauty; the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit. It is the recreation on another plane of the realities of the world; the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men, and of all the inter-relations of these.

I don’t know why life isn’t constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistakes, things fall so short of our expectations, and our hearts get broken and out kids do scary things and our parents get old and don’t always remember to put pants on before they go out for a stroll. I don’t know why it’s not more like it is in the movies, why things don’t come out neatly and lessons can’t be learned when you’re in the mood for learning them, why love and grace often come in such motley packaging.

You can't always do that which you can do in your sleep. That doesn't fulfill an artist. You're looking for places where you can grow, in some way, whether it's a large way or a small way. I want to grow as an artist, as a person and as a woman. I want to enjoy myself and my life and the company that I'm keeping. I want to bring something to the table that's different than anything else would bring, but that has its place and value, and then keep moving.

I just do art because I’m ugly and there’s nothing else for me to do.

To any man who has slaved to acquire skill in his art, it is most irritating to have his ability referred to as a “gift.”

If you’re really listening, if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly.

Lean your body forward slightly to support the guitar against your chest, for the poetry of the music should resound in your heart.

The thing I am most aware of is my limits. And this is natural; for I never, or almost never, occupy the middle of my cage; my whole being surges toward the bars.

Earth is the holiest place in the Universe, loving the earth, and loving life is the way to generate positive vibrations.

My first wish is to be simple in my actions, truthful in my speech, honest in my opinions, and natural in my behavior. In other words, I want to be clean in mind, heart, and body.

My cloud photographs are equivalents of my most profound life experiences, my basic philosophy of life. All art is an equivalent of the artist’s most profound life experiences.

I feel people are seeing me as a true artist rather than a singer, or an entertainer, or a girl who just makes songs.

Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words…By means of art were are sometimes sent - dimly, briefly - revelations unattainable by reason.

The past can't hurt you anymore, not unless you let it.

Why do so many ingenious theorists give fresh reasons every year for the decline of letter writing, and why do they assume, in derision of suffering humanity, that it has declined? They lament the lack of leisure, the lack of sentiment ... They talk of telegrams, and telephones, and postal cards, as if any discovery of science, any device of civilization, could eradicate from the human heart that passion for self-expression which is the impelling force of letters.

There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

Never break a Muslim's heart by refusing what he offers you, when you know that anything that comes to you through him is in reality from Allah, and he is only His powerless and compelled means.

You have to enjoy your job; you should wake up every day and love what you do... I honestly do... From the bottom of my heart to the depths of my soul. I'm truly happy.

However, as words become particularized, and as men begin - in however small a way - to use them in personal, arbitrary ways, so their transformation into art begins. It was words of this kind that, descending on me like a swarm of winged insects, seized on my individuality and sought to shut me up within it. Nevertheless, despite the enemy's depredations upon my person, I turned their universality - at once a weapon and a weakness - back on them, and to some extent succeeded in using words to universalize to my own individuality.