Quotes about Art

Poems are made of words. They aren't boxes. They aren't houses. Nobody is in them, really.

What were prizes but one more level of control imposed on Art by the establishment?

The creative industries tend to dismiss technology as just something to buy and not understand how hard it is and how creative it can be as well.

No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.

But it was the singing that pulled me in and split me wide open.

So I sit for a moment and then say a small prayer - please help me get out of the way so I can write what wants to be written.

Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I'm sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here—and, by extension, what we're supposed to be writing.

Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can't—and, in fact, you're not supposed to—know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing.

treasure what it means to do a day's work. It's our one and only chance to do something productive today, and it's certainly not available to someone merely because he is the high bidder. A day's work is your chance to do art, to create a gift, to do something that matters. As your work gets better and your art becomes more important, competition for your gifts will increase and you'll discover that you can be choosier about whom you give them to.

I think art is the ability to change people with your work, to see things as they are and then create stories, images, and interactions that change the marketplace.

You get to keep making art as long as you are willing to make the choices that let you make your art.