The compelling thing about making art—or making anything, I suppose—is the moment when the vaporous, insubstantial idea becomes a solid , a thing, a substance in a world of substances. Circe, Nimbue, Artemis, Athena, all the old sorceresses: they...
The paradox is that some of the most artistically valuable contemporary photographs are content with being photographs, are not under the same compulsion to pass themselves off - or pimp themselves out - as art. The simple truth is that the best expo...
The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work.
Lat at nigh have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were mean to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't pain, an entrepreneur who never starts a ventur...
The artist and the mother are vehicles, not originators. They don't create the new life, they only bear it. This is why birth is such a humbling experience. The new mom weeps in awe at the little miracle in her arms. She knows it came out of her but ...
Sean at sixteen thought 'Rexecutioner's Dream' was the greatest thing he'd ever heard, something so strange and different it seemed like a message from another realm. It had cover art, but the art was glued onto the inner sleeve of a standard-issue b...
The TV scientist who mutters sadly, "The experiment is a failure; we have failed to achieve what we had hoped for," is suffering mainly from a bad script writer. An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. A...
It was the ghost of rationality itself ... This is the ghost of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great m...
As in the universe every atom has an effect, however minuscule, on every other atom, so that to pinch the fabric of Time and Space at any point is to shake the whole length and breadth of it, so in fiction every element has effect on every other, so ...
Copyright law has got to give up its obsession with 'the copy.' The law should not regulate 'copies' or 'modern reproductions' on their own. It should instead regulate uses--like public distributions of copies of copyrighted work--that connect direct...
Diversity matters. Not only in what we look like, or what religion we practice, or in whom we love, but also in how we live our lives, including the order in which we go about things, the seasons in which we are able to create art. Those who are enga...
Fine art refers to an accomplished or advanced skill being used to testify and reveal the knowledge, ability, and wisdom of the creator. There is no art more exquisite than the work of the Master Artist Himself. Even those who choose to deny Him cred...
Art then becomes a safety valve for the expression of individual and collective neuroses originating in the inability of coping with the environment. Its products serve as a retarded correction of perception braked by the system of conventions and st...
From childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I was different I was not raised; as others were My passions from a common sense of ideas. From the same source I have taken Thus, this is art that connects mankind My pains; I could not awaken Re...
I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. ~ I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called “culture” – and that this yearning is as strong...
But as in the degrees of sickness thou art to submit to God, so in the kind of it (supposing equal degrees) thou art to be altogether indifferent whether God call thee by a consumption or an asthma, by a dropsy or palsy, by a fever in thy humours, or...
Artists are agents of chaos. It is the artists job to encourage entropy, to promote chaos. Idols must be killed, icons crushed, beliefs shattered. It is the artists job to encourage legitimate, unadulterated, raw thought and emotion. Art that does no...
Delmar O'Donnell: Care for some gopher? Ulysses Everett McGill: No thank you, Delmar. A third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without beddin' 'er back down. Delmar O'Donnell: Oh, you can have the whole thing. Me and Pete already had one api...
Pete: I've always wondered, what's the devil look like? Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, there are all manner of lesser imps and demons, Pete, but the great Satan hisself is red and scaly with a bifurcated tail, and he carries a hay fork. Tommy Johnson:...
Pappy O'Daniel: And furthermore, by way of endorsing my candidacy, the Soggy Bottom Boys are gonna lead us all in a rousing chorus of "You Are My Sunshine." [Applause. Pappy turns away from the mike, towards Everett] Pappy O'Daniel: [no-nonsense] Ain...
Pete: You miserable little snake! You stole from my kin! Ulysses Everett McGill: Who was fixin' to betray us. Pete: You didn't know that at the time. Ulysses Everett McGill: So I borrowed it until I did know. Pete: That don't make no sense! Ulysses E...
