Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force.

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

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

If a projectile were deprived of the force of gravity, it would not be deflected toward the earth but would go off in a straight line into the heavens and do so with uniform motion, provided that the resistance of the air were removed.

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.

I’ve started doing book reviews for Barnes & Noble! They saw that I did a lot of book reviews on the site, and they figured that it might not be a bad thing if they got me to do some for them as well. I gave them five categories I’d be interested in reviewing, from art to fiction to music.

Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

What is a rebel? A man who says no: but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation.

All art is but imitation of nature.

I think Americans generally are not used to working very hard, in terms of working for the collective. I think in our country we have taken individualism to its farthest reaches, possibly.

O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.

‚The Lady’s World‘ should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women’s opinions on all subjects of literature, art and modern life, and yet it should be a magazine that men could read with pleasure.

I believe that economics is based on scarcity of markets. And it’s possible to monetize your art without compromising the integrity of it for commerce.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this – death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

Art is to be free. Design is to fix.

Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

The art is long, life is short.

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.

There are two kinds of people in this world. ‚I‘ people and ‚we‘ people. I’ve always tried to be a ‚we‘ person.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.

Frank Lloyd Wright… his things were beautiful but not very functional.

Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It’s like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

I wish I could make music about politics. I feel like it’s such an art and a talent that I admire tremendously, but when I step into the studio, I step out of the real world, and it’s therapeutic.

Mine is better than ours.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

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.

When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.

All good art is an indiscretion.

When I’m in the studio, I’m looking for creativity I haven’t matched yet, a feeling I haven’t felt. It’s a high.

I have been very interested and intrigued and congratulatory toward President Bush and his paintings.

Like Frank Sinatra, I’m doing it my way.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

I love all of the arts. I love motion pictures. I love stage. I love theater.

Every picture has its own demands, and every picture stimulates something within you to tell it a certain way. I don’t know what that is; I don’t think too much about that.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the ambition of the great painters was to make paintings that were like music, which was then considered as the noblest art.

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

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

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

It’s not easy to define poetry.

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

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

Really I don’t like human nature unless all candied over with art.

I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.