Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts – the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.

I think there’s a lot of similarity between what people try to do with religion with what they want from art. In fact, I very specifically think that they are same thing. Not that religion and art are the same, but that they both tap into the same need we have for surrender.

Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.

We have listened too long to the courtly Muses of Europe.

All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

Music is something no one can control.

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

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

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

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

The earliest paintings I loved were always the most non-referential paintings you can imagine, by painters such as Mondrian. I was thrilled by them because they didn’t refer to anything else. They stood alone, and they were just charged magic objects that did not get their strength from being connected to anything else.

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.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.

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

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

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

Instead of stubbornly attempting to use surrealism for purposes of subversion, it is necessary to try to make of surrealism something as solid, complete and classic as the works of museums.

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

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

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

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.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‚elephant‘.

Doing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.

Autobiography is awfully seductive; it’s wonderful. Once I got into it, I realized I was following a tradition established by Frederick Douglass – the slave narrative – speaking in the first-person singular, talking about the first-person plural, always saying ‚I,‘ meaning ‚we.‘

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.

Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?

For 20 years, Simon & Schuster asked me, ‚Why don’t you write your autobiography?‘

Painting, I think it’s like jazz.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think.

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

I create stars.

Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity – and I don’t mean simple – it’ll be good, and the public will know it.

In art the best is good enough.

I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else – I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.

I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can’t help it. It’s the truth.

To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

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.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

Art is to be free. Design is to fix.

I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

I was always interested in choreography – in making people think and feel something.

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

I have Dalinian thought: the one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

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