Others

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

Good painters imitate nature, bad ones spew it up.

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

I DOUBT THAT ART NEEDED RUSKIN ANY MORE THAN A MOVING TRAIN NEEDS ONE OF ITS PASSENGERS TO SHOVE IT.

I DOUBT THAT ART NEEDED RUSKIN ANY MORE THAN A MOVING TRAIN NEEDS ONE OF ITS PASSENGERS TO SHOVE IT.

THERE ARE TWO MEN INSIDE THE ARTIST, THE POET AND THE CRAFTSMAN. ONE IS BORN A POET. ONE BECOMES A CRAFTSMAN.

There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.

ALL ART IS QUITE USELESS.

IT IS DANGEROUS TO BE SINCERE UNLESS YOU ARE ALSO STUPID.

EASY READING IS DAMN HARD WRITING.

DON’T TELL ME THE MOON IS SHINING; SHOW ME THE GLINT OF LIGHT ON BROKEN GLASS.

DON’T TELL ME THE MOON IS SHINING; SHOW ME THE GLINT OF LIGHT ON BROKEN GLASS.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

A SEQUEL IS AN ADMISSION THAT YOU’VE BEEN REDUCED TO IMITATING YOURSELF.

A SEQUEL IS AN ADMISSION THAT YOU’VE BEEN REDUCED TO IMITATING YOURSELF.

I can’t understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems; it’s like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.

A GOOD NOVEL TELLS US THE TRUTH ABOUT ITS HERO; BUT A BAD NOVEL TELLS US THE TRUTH ABOUT ITS AUTHOR.

To thine ownself be true.

Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular all his life long.