Art Quotes - Page 4

You don’t make art out of good intentions.

There is no excuse for anyone to write fiction for public consumption unless he has been called to do so by the presence of a gift. It is the nature of fiction not to be good for much unless it is good in itself.

When the writer (or the artist in general) says he has worked without giving any thought to the rules of the process, he simply means he was working without realizing he knew the rules.

The public wants work which flatters its illusions.

He thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it.

The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.

Create a guidebook of creative dreams

You can use a blank book or just blank paper clipped together. Put photographs or scraps from magazines in that represent your creative dreams. Draw, scribble, or paint in between the images. Make a list of creative dreams you've thought of or admire in others.

Dive again and again into the river of uncertainty. Create in the dark, only then can you recognize the light.

Always suffer delusions of grandeur with your art. What you are unable to face will never hurt you

Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.

Identifying Your Dream

Some people can easily identify one primary dream. For others, a dream is more elusive. These people often have many dreams at once, or a general idea of a dream that never takes a specific shape.

That's how it is with art. Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o'clock in the morning are incapable of such writing.

He possessed the logic of all good intentions and a knowledge of all the tricks of his trade, and yet he never succeeded at anything, because he believed too much in the impossible. Surprising? Why so? He was forever in the act of conceiving it!

I spoke fire, laughed smoke, and madness spilled forth from my inspiration.

The truest art I would strive for in any work would be to give the page the same qualities as earth: weather would land on it harshly; light would elucidate the most difficult truths; wind would sweep away obtuse padding.

I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artists’ relationship is essentially with their work - not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience.

I get angry about things, then go on and work.

Our creative dreams are subject to grudge-holding when we decide that other people somehow have made their dreams real and we have not.

Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

A novel is no different than graffiti in a bathroom stall, it's just more pretentious.