Art

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

I’D RATHER BE HISSED AT FOR A GOOD VERSE, THAN APPLAUDED FOR A BAD ONE.

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE ENEMY OF ALL ART, BE IT ACTING, WRITING, PAINTING, OR LIVING ITSELF, WHICH IS THE GREATEST ART OF ALL.

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

THERE IS ONLY ONE POSITION FOR AN ARTIST ANYWHERE: AND THAT IS, UPRIGHT.

Good painters imitate nature, bad ones spew it up.

THE HISTORY OF ART IS THE HISTORY OF REVIVALS.

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

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.

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

ALL ART IS QUITE USELESS.

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

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

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

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.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

Every artist was first an amateur.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.

I dream my painting and then paint my dream.

The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.