1940s, Religion and Science: Irreconcilable? (1948)
"...like captured fireflies" (1955); also published in America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction (2003), p. 142
“The best teachers of humanity are the lives of great men.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 217.
What’s Wrong with Twinkling Buttocks? http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_3_oh_to_be.html (Summer 2003).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)
Commencement speech, Stanford University (2007-06-17)
Speeches and lectures
On whether an artist should paint about injustices in “Interview With Fernando Botero” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/interview-with-fernando-botero_b_6795782 in HuffPost (2017 Dec 6)
“The development that produces great art is a moral and not an aesthetic development.”
"Italian Report" (December 1955).
“Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.”
Plato; or, The Philosopher
1850s, Representative Men (1850)
A Man Without a Country (2005)
Context: If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
