While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.

Europe is so well gardened that it resembles a work of art, a scientific theory, a neat metaphysical system. Man has re-created Europe in his own image.

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

When you’re in comedy, people always come up and say, ‚Oh, it must be so hard.‘ It really isn’t hard unless you’re not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.

I say that in the most humble way: I always knew that I could perform with the best of ‚em and I could deliver with the best of ‚em.

Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?

I’ve taken so many kids out of Pittsburgh and onto the great white way in New York City right into a Broadway show.

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you’ll see you had to be sharp onstage.

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.

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.

You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.

I get really motivated when I put on the India jersey. It is a responsibility, so I want to perform in the best way I can.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

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.

I performed in a bowling alley before while people were still bowling. Cut the check, and I will perform anywhere.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

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

The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.

Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.

Acting is a question of absorbing other people’s personalities and adding some of your own experience.

Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

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.

Woman begins by resisting a man’s advances and ends by blocking his retreat.

You think I’m going to ask these sweet 14 year olds to ask their parents to buy a $100 ticket then run around in latex and lip sync? No way.

Young love is wild and outrageous, laughing at moderation and blinding us to common sense.

Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.

I could imagine at a certain age, when I have no vocal cords left, that I would find a young man who could sing my parts for me. But I don’t see why I would stop.

It’s simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they’re done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it’s what they see. That’s where my head is at.

Diplomacy is the art of saying ‚Nice doggie‘ until you can find a rock.

There are no rules when it comes to love.

Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

I’ve been trying to… Having been an English literary graduate, I’ve been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity.

I love eating chocolate cake and ice cream after a show. I almost justify it in my mind as, ‚You were a good boy onstage and you did your show, so now you can have some cake and ice cream.‘

My main focus is always to do well on the field for the Indian cricket team. When people say good things about me off the field, I am more than happy to accept them.

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.

If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world.

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

Music comes to me more readily than words.

I played Othello, but I didn’t sit around thinking how Laurence Olivier did it when he played it. That wouldn’t do me any good.

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.

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?

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

I want the concentration and the romance, and the worlds all glued together, fused, glowing: have no time to waste any more on prose.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you’d rather be in.

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

Music is like film to me.

On the field, aggression can sometimes be a positive emotion. It boosts performance and can lift your game. But over the years, I have learnt that restrained aggression is a better animal. That way, you will conserve your energy and won’t spend yourself quickly.

A lot of times, you could play me just the laughs from my set, and I could tell you, from the laugh, what the joke was. Because they match.

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.

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.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.

I don’t know what acting is, but I enjoy it.

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.