Quotes about art

„Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.“

—  Stephen King American author 1947

„Art consists of the persistence of memory.“

—  Stephen King, book Misery

Misery (1987)
Context: Writers remember everything... especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.
Art consists of the persistence of memory.

„Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.“

—  Stephen King American author 1947

„All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.“

—  Edward Abbey American author and essayist 1927 - 1989

“Fire Lookout: Numa Ridge”, p. 57
The Journey Home (1977)
Source: The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West

„We must finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess. We must condemn once and for all the formula "chess for the sake of chess", like the formula "art for art's sake". We must organize shockbrigades of chess-players, and begin immediate realization of a Five-Year Plan for chess.“

—  Nikolai Krylenko Russian revolutionary, politician and chess organiser 1885 - 1938

Krylenko on promoting chess in the Soviet Union. Quoted in Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment

„Politics is a great art. It succeeds at convincing the people that they have to pay for what has been stolen from them.“

—  Andrzej Majewski Polish writer and photographer 1966

Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)

„A sculpture, a map, a photograph; all the forms of my work are equal and complementary. The knowledge of my actions, in whatever form, is the art. My art is the essence of my experience, not a representation of it.“

—  Richard Long artist 1945

Richard Long: Books, Prints, Printed Matter. Exhib cat New York Public Library, New York 1994
1990s

„Wild roses are fairest, and nature a better gardener than art.“

—  Louisa May Alcott, A Long Fatal Love Chase

Source: A Long Fatal Love Chase

„A man can be a hero if he is a scientist, or a soldier, or a drug addict, or a disc jockey, or a crummy mediocre politician. A man can be a hero because he suffers and despairs; or because he thinks logically and analytically; or because he is "sensitive"; or because he is cruel. Wealth establishes a man as a hero, and so does poverty. Virtually any circumstance in a man's life will make him a hero to some group of people and has a mythic rendering in the culture — in literature, art, theater, or the daily newspapers.“

—  Andrea Dworkin Feminist writer 1946 - 2005

Speech at Queen's College, City University of New York (March 12, 1975). "The Sexual Politics of Fear and Courage", ch. 5, published in Our Blood (1976).

„Each work of art generate its own rules“

—  Robert Pinsky American poet, editor, literary critic, academic. 1940

Singing School

„Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.“

—  Laurence J. Peter Canadian eductor 1919 - 1990

p. 362

„Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.“

—  Paul Rand American graphic designer 1914 - 1996

„I envision a society without any physical or psychological barriers towards the blind – a barrier-free environment where the blind can walk freely, can travel, can work, think for themselves, and live proud and dignified lives like other citizens. Society thinks that we can only sing sweet songs, only become teachers and telephone operators in the bank. But we can do more. We can dance, we can fire juggle, we can do martial arts, we can become managers and directors of companies. But society is constantly interpreting what we can do and what we can’t. This has to change very soon.“

—  Tiffany Brar Indian Social Activist 1988

As quoted in They Say the Blind Should Not Lead the Blind. She Proves Them Wrong. https://www.thebetterindia.com/40485/tiffany-brar-working-for-blind/ (December 22, 2015) by Ranjini Sivaswamy, The Better India.

„I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.“

—  H.P. Lovecraft American author 1890 - 1937

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

„Be true to yourself.
Make each day your masterpiece.
Help others.
Drink deeply from good books.
Make friendship a fine art.
Build a shelter against a rainy day.
Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.“

—  John Wooden American basketball coach 1910 - 2010

„If my art has nothing to do with people's pain and sorrow, what is 'art' for?“

—  Ai Weiwei Chinese concept artist 1957

„Have you killed anyone?” she asked quickly.
“What? Did you miss what I said, about turning murder into
an art form?”
“But you haven’t actually killed anyone yet, have you? I read
your file.”
He glowered. “Technically, yeah, all right, maybe I haven’t“

—  Derek Landy Irish children's writer 1974

Source: Playing with Fire

„The art has to make it on its own, without explanations, and it’s the same for poetry. If the poem or the painting has to be explained, then it’s a failure in communication.“

—  Lawrence Ferlinghetti American artist, writer and activist 1919

„The world is a king, and like a king, desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is selfish and perverse — it will not submit to the mold of flattery.“

—  Ludwig Van Beethoven German Romantic composer 1770 - 1827

Conversations (March 1820)