“…reality’s always dull, you know…”
Fiction, Time for a Tiger (1956)
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Anthony Burgess 297
English writer 1917–1993Related quotes
“Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.”
Source: Taken Care Of (1965), Ch. 19
Source: "Unsafe at Any Speed or: Safe, Sane and Consensual, My Fanny", p. 12
“fiction always surpasses reality but reality is always richer than fiction.”
Source: Outlaws
“The smaller your reality, the more convinced you are that you know everything.”
Source: My Big TOE - The Complete Trilogy
As quoted by John Gery in Ways of Nothingness: Nuclear Annihilation and Contemporary American Poetry (1996)
Context: In each art the difficulty of the form is a substitution for the difficulty of direct apprehension and expression of the object. The first difficulty may be more or less overcome, but the second is insuperable; thus every poem begins, or ought to, by a disorderly retreat to defensible positions. Or, rather, by a perception of the hopelessness of direct combat, and a resort to the warfare of spells, effigies, and prophecies. The relation between the artist and reality is an oblique one, and indeed there is no good art which is not consciously oblique. If you respect the reality of the world, you know that you can approach that reality only by indirect means.
“A magician does not send messages, you know—he orchestrates reality.”
Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 7, “Who Is the Black Beast?” (p. 119)
Herschel Browning Chip (1968, p. 270).
Other translation:
Abstract art is only painting. And what's so dramatic about that? There is no abstract art. One must always begin with something. Afterwards one can remove all semblance of reality.
Richard Friedenthal (1968, p. 256-7).
Longer version:
Abstract art is only painting. And what's so dramatic about that? There is no abstract art. One must always begin with something. Afterwards one can remove all semblance of reality; there is no longer any danger as the idea of the object has left an indelible imprint. It is the object which aroused the artist, stimulated his ideas and set of his emotions. These ideas and emotions will be imprisoned in his work for good.. .Whether he wants it or not, man is the instrument of nature; she imposes on him character and appearance. In my paintings of Dinard, as in my paintings of Purville, I have given expression to more or less the same vision.. .. You cannot go against nature. She is stronger than the strongest of men. We can permit ourselves some liberties, but in details only (Boisgeloup, winter 1934).
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 313
Quotes, 1930's, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35
Context: Abstract art is only painting. What about drama?
There is no abstract art. You always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.