Art Quotes - Page 511

I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.

All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.

I wonder now whether inner coldness and desolation may not be the pre-condition for making the world believe, by a kind of fraudulent showmanship, that one's own wretched heart is still aglow.

Don't worry about your heart, it will last you as long as you live.

To us love says humming that the heart's stalled motor has begun working again.

You've got to invest in the world, you've got to read, you've got to go to art galleries, you've got to find out the names of plants. You've got to start to love the world and know about the whole genius of the human race. We're amazing people.

I went from one to the other holding my sorrow - no, not my sorrow but the incomprehensible nature of this our life - for their inspection. Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends, I to my own heart, I to seek among phrases and fragments something unbroken - I to whom there is no beauty enough in moon or tree; to whom the touch of one person with another is all, yet who cannot grasp even that, who am so imperfect, so weak, so unspeakably lonely.

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.

Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.

It's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint it. There is the art of lines and colours, but the art of words exists too, and will never be less important.

In my view, I am often immensely rich, not in money, but (although just now perhaps not all the time) rich because I have found my metier, something I can devote myself to heart and soul and that gives inspiration and meaning to my life.

I'm not a very confessional artist, you know. I don't ever reveal what I'm feeling in my work, or what I think about the President. I use nature. I use found images.

To be an artist, you don't have to compose music or paint or be in the movies or write books. It's just a way of living. It has to do with paying attention, remembering, filtering what you see and answering back, participating in life.

Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.

Art is an investigation.

My music is not for everyone. It's only for the stong-willed, the [street] soldiers music. It's not like party music- I mean, you could gig to it, but it's spiritual. My musi is spiritual. It's like Negro spiituals, except for the fact that I'm not saying 'We shall Overcome.' I'm saying that we are overcome.

When your daughter asks you to be a fairy for her 5th birthday party... you better be a damned fairy.

I did not enter the Labour Party 47 years ago to have our manifesto written by Dr Mori, Dr Gallup and Mr Harris

I like to work with people that I like hanging out with, that I admire, that are really smart and talented, and we can problem solve together.

Everybody is in your business, gossiping and being mean spirited. It's different. Sometimes I'm like, "Do I want to do this?," because it's not about the art anymore. It's a struggle. There's part of me that wants to share my gift, which is art, and if I don't, am I taking away something that the Creator gave me to share? At the same time, I don't want to be a part of feeding the dumbing down of society.

On the field I'm trying to play for the glory of God but then also I'm trying to give everything I have and win and compete. And so I think more than just winning or losing, I think He cares about where our hearts are when we're playing.

I just want to wear my heart on my sleeve.

Publishing your work is important. Even if you are giving a piece to some smaller publication for free, you will learn something about your writing. The editor will say something, friends will mention it. You will learn.

God will fill the hungry because He Himself has stirred up the hunger. As in the case of prayer, when God prepares the heart to pray, He prepares His ear to hear (Ps. 10:17). So in the case of spiritual hunger, when God prepares the heart to hunger, He will prepare His hand to fill.

If we must part for ever, Give me but one kind word to think upon, And please myself withal, whilst my heart's breaking!