A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.

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

Oh, this base heart of ours! Hath it not enough tinder in it to set on fire the course of nature? If a spark do but fall into it, any one of our members left to itself would dishonour Christ, deny the Lord that bought us, and turn back into perdition.

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.

To do a dull thing with style-now that’s what I call art.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

Obviously, the cinematography of films is art, just as a still shot can be art. If I’m watching a Wes Anderson movie, the colour palettes alone, and the way they’re painted, could be art. With music, you’re a little bit limited, of course, because it’s only audio.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

We have to rediscover the eternal values and then live them out.

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

What I like to do is try to make a difference with the work I do.

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

But I think we’re also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They’ve seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There’s so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman’s heart.

We had to go on and do the work of the court and we did.

There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge.

Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which he is best suited.

The art is long, life is short.

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.

Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.

Don’t overact the story of your name. Overact the story of your work.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

Turn resolutely to work, to recreation, or in any case to physical exercise till you are so tired you can’t help going to sleep, and when you wake up you won’t want to worry.

Sometimes I think that there’s a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

It is a curious thing: man, the centre and creator of all science, is the only object which our science has not yet succeeded in including in a homogeneous representation of the universe. We know the history of his bones, but no ordered place has yet been found in nature for his reflective intelligence.

When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

I only live in my music, and I have scarcely begun one thing when I start on another. As I am now working, I am often engaged on three or four things at the same time.

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

It seems almost backwards to me that my music seems the more emotional outlet, and the art stuff seems more about ideas.

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.

Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.

Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.

You will never fulfill your destiny doing work you despise.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

I got a signed document from Bullock’s saying that they had such-and-such drawings on consignment. Of course, nobody bought any of them, but otherwise, I was a big success: I had my drawings on sale at Bullock’s!

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.

Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.

Sisters, do you realize the breadth and scope of your influence when you speak those things that come to your heart and mind as directed by the Spirit?