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

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public.

Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people’s children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.

He who acts with a constant view to his own advantage will be much murmured against.

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

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

There are people out there who hate me and who say I’m arrogant, vain, and whatever. That’s all part of my success. I am made to be the best.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

People love photos. Photos originally weren’t that big a part of the idea for Facebook, but we just found that people really like them, so we built out this functionality.

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

The key to making things affordable is design and technology improvements, as well as scale.

Art’s everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.

Give a critic an inch, he’ll write a play.

Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.

Music is like film to me.

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it ‚the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.‘ The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‚Artist.‘

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.

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.

All art is quite useless.

I love designing at the moment, I’m so happy with my work.

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

I always want to create and do things, or draw.

I paint mostly from real life. It has to start with that. Real people, real street scenes, behind the curtain scenes, live models, paintings, photographs, staged setups, architecture, grids, graphic design. Whatever it takes to make it work.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

When I do a picture and it’s 90% black, like ‚Bird,‘ I use 90% black people.

America is just downright mean.

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.

You can be obsessed with the bad things people say and the good things; either way, you’re obsessed with yourself, and I’m not – you can become unhinged so easily.

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

Nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all, you must not strip it of vitality.

And, honestly, if somebody wants to criticize me for not being a trainwreck, that’s fine with me!

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

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.

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

All nature is but art unknown to thee.

I’ve got a real sense of three-dimensional geometry. I can look at a flat piece of fabric and know that if I put a slit in it and make some fabric travel around a square, then when you lift it up it will drape in a certain way, and I can feel how that will happen.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

All art is dependent on technology because it’s a human endeavour, so even when you’re using charcoal on a wall or designed the proscenium arch, that’s technology.

The last person I have ever criticized is an official. They have a tough job to do. Things are happening so quick.

It’s much worse to read criticism about your son than yourself.

When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that you won’t be disappointed in me.

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it.

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.

The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

I don’t usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this ‚hopey changey stuff,‘ she was right: there was nothing there.

The world can criticize me, but l can always criticize it back.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.