“English, then, came as an escape, a secret code shared between me and no one — not even English speakers, at least not in the form it took through misheard lyrics, approximated words, and half-digested novels. It was a language that could write me, and not the other way.”— Roman Muradov, medium.com
“Yet here’s the greater paradox: writing, though performed alone, is also the only absolutely declarative, meaning-beset art form we have. Its purpose is to communicate. With others. More than a painter, much more than a composer, a writer can never “be alone.””— Patricia Hampl, theparisreview.org
“And the clearer and deeper you get into what you really want, you just become a better artist. If that’s what you really want — becoming a better artist — does that include access? Does that include having 5 billion Instagram followers? I don’t know. That’s for you to decide. But if what you want is…”— Sandra Oh, vulture.com
“I want to draw something that means something to someone. You know, I want to draw blind faith or a fading summer or just a moment of clarity. It’s like when you go and you see a really great band live for the first time, you know, and nobody’s saying it but everybody’s thinking it: "We have somethi…”— Mark Schwahn, Peyton Sawyer, Hilarie Burton, imdb.com
“Working for yourself may mean you have more time to do what you love at your own discretion, but it doesn’t mean you’re exempt from caring about other people’s opinions of what you do.”— Brianna Wiest, forbes.com
“Cinema is the heir of all artistic cultures, as is the nation itself that elevated it for the first time in all history – both in estimation and creatively – to the very heights of art, and it is the heir of all cultures of the preceding ages.”— Sergei Eisenstein,
“Art for the artist, is only suffering through which he releases himself for further suffering.”— Franz Kafka, amazon.com
“I believe art is objective, and that time is the truth-teller of quality. If you could time travel 30 years into the future, tell me who is going to be more popular: Ed Sheeran or Ariel Pink?”— Julian Casablancas, vulture.com
“Do you know how long it has been since someone dared mix high art with good old-fashioned fucking?”— David Henry Hwang, Alena Smith, Rodney Callahan, David Naughton, imdb.com
“Today, however, “ ‘intellectual life’ has disappeared from the Left Bank,” he says. The most interesting galleries migrated across the river years ago to the Bastille and the Marais, many of the great bookshops have closed — there is a Louis Vuitton boutique where La Hune used to be — and the Latin…”— Jonathan Derbyshire, ft.com
“Become great the boring way. The obsessive way. Watch 100 stars be born that aren't you. Learn to be cool with it.”— John Mayer, instagram.com
“There is too much motivation to become a brand and not enough to become great at something.”— John Mayer, instagram.com
“An old friend once told me something that gave me great comfort. Something he had read. He said that Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin never died. They simply became music.”— Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan, Dr. Robert Ford, Anthony Hopkins, imdb.com
“During my span of life science has become a matter of public concern and the l'art pour l'art standpoint of my youth is now obsolete. Science has become an integral and most important part of our civilization, and scientific work means contributing to its development. Science in our technical age ha…”— Max Born, todayinsci.com
“Problem with portraiture: a really good artist will not give you veto power over what she/he does with your image. If you can influence the portraitist to flatter you, the portraitist has no integrity. If you can't, prepare to wince & cringe & as soon as you can get rid of portrait.”— Joyce Carol Oates, twitter.com
“My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.”— Joyce Carol Oates, amazon.com
“Silence is an art, a tool of the wise. When we perfect the art of silence, chances are that we will get a lot more done.”— Iyanla Vanzant, twitter.com