I had just arrived in New York from California. I was nineteen years old and excited beyond belief. I was an art student and an acting student and behaved as most young actors did - meaning that there was no such thing as a good actor, 'cause you yourself hadn't shown up yet.

If we examine a work of ordinary art, by means of a powerful microscope, all traces of resemblance to nature will disappear - but the closest scrutiny of the photogenic drawing discloses only a more absolute truth, a more perfect identity of aspect with the thing represented.

Nature/Structure. There is no more to say. In my pictures I reduce to that. But 'reduce' is the wrong word, because these are not simplifications. I can't verbalize what I am working on: to me, it is many-layered by definition; it is what is more important, what is more true.

The secret of the nobility and beauty of great ladies lies in the art with which they can shed their veils. In such situations, they become like ancient statues. If they kept the merest scarf on, they would be lewd. Your bourgeois woman will always try to cover her nakedness.

In truth, the best long-term explanations about our ancient counterparts can be found in the paintings, sculpture, crafts, tools of utility, language and architecture left behind. These are the building blocks of civilization we call culture. These are what we call 'the arts.

An exquisite invention this, Worthy of Love's most honeyed kiss,-- This art of writing billet-doux-- In buds, and odors, and bright hues! In saying all one feels and thinks In clever daffodils and pinks; In puns of tulips; and in phrases, Charming for their truth, of daisies.

A system that rewards politicians skilled at campaigning - which is the art of creating an illusion - and that puts hundreds of billions of coerced taxpayer dollars at the disposal of the winners will tend to attract men and women with a comparative advantage in manipulation.

Art is an affirmation of life, a rebuttal of death. And here we blunder into paradox again, for during the creation of any form of art, art which affirms the value and the holiness of life, the artist must die. To serve a work of art, great or small, is to die, to die to self.

Now, I can smile at the stock quality of these friends, these uniforms. these looking-glasses, these sharers. Each is a character lifted straight from literature and yet, life successfully aping art, they are alive, and fulfil their destinies - or act their parts - flawlessly.

We need new art. Old art cannot do that. It can do lots of other things, and of course humanity hasn't changed that much in the last thousand or two thousand years.So that the old Greek dramas are still at the very heart, core, of human experience, but still we need new stuff.

A prudent man... must behave like those archers who, if they are skillful, when the target seems too distant, know the capabilities of their bow and aim a good deal higher than their objective, not in order to shoot so high but so that by aiming high they can reach the target.

Public opinion which, to be sure, can at times be helpful, must never for an instant swerve us from what we know in our heart we are trying to convey. For honesty is the great requisite of art. If we remain honest with ourselves, art, which is always there, never lets us down.

I think the biggest thing - and this I think is true of songs but also of movies and books and art in general - is when you have this moment where you hear a song or whatever and you say, "Hey, I've felt that exact way as a human being," and there's no easy way to describe it.

It is a great art to have an abundance of knowledge and experience - to know the richness of life, the beauty of existence, the struggles, the miseries, the laughter, the tears - and yet keep your mind very simple; and you can have a simple mind only when you know how to love.

I became tired of submitting my art to a panel of corporate strategists who decide if it meets their standard of what gets into stores or not. It was quite simple for me: they act like judge and jury of my art, and that is unacceptable. I wanted to give it right to the public.

Art is not an investment. Art is something you buy because you are financially solvent enough to give yourself a pleasure of living with great works rather than having to just see them in museums. People who are buying art at the top of the market as an investment are foolish.

Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach - how you look at things . . . Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative.

Depression is a real demon in the woods for a lot of creative people, you know? It's part of what the documentary is trying to be about for me, finding balance, where the beauty that is attainable in the creative arts can be matched with the scratchy roughness of regular life.

When I left the theatre and turned to writing, one of the big pulls was that, unlike the theatre, I didn't have to wait to be hired before I could do my art. That was huge. But you still have to figure out how to support your habit; it's rare and lucky when art pays the bills.

The surrealists, and the modern movement in painting as a whole, seemed to offer a key to the strange postwar world with its threat of nuclear war. The dislocations and ambiguities, in cubism and abstract art as well as the surrealists, reminded me of my childhood in Shanghai.

Art is not fashionable. That's why fashion and art are two different things. Fashion can never be art because fashion deals with whim, what is temporary, what changes, what is transient, what is now and not now. Art has to deal with issues that are timeless, that never change.

A man practices the art of adventure when he heroically faces up to life. When he has the daring to open doors to new experiences. When he is unafraid of new ideas, new theories and new philosophies. When he has the curiosity to experiment. When he breaks the chain of routine.

Creativity cannot be really regulated, but it can be encouraged. The redevelopment or revitalization of a city is an art. It depends on the individual strengths of a place and the will of the leadership to bring about change. The goal is to establish a cultural infrastructure.

Wherever...thou shalt be, pray secretly within thyself. If thou shalt be far from a house of prayer, give not thyself trouble to seek for one, for thou thyself art a sanctuary designed for prayer. If thou shalt be in bed, or in any other place, pray there; thy temple is there.

The scene fascinated me: a round straw hat; the funnel leaning left, the stairway leaning right; the white drawbridge, its railings made of chain; white suspenders crossed on the back of a man below; circular iron machinery; a mast that cut into the sky, completing a triangle.

And having those mystical elements you see in Asian cinema and certainly Asian martial arts cinema, it's something that we wanted to begin to introduce - the idea of spirituality and the idea of there being something else out in the world besides people who are great fighters.

A lot of us have all sorts of ideas, and we select some rather than others and give expression to those... and some works of art are more successful than others. Some languish in obscurity and are never heard of again, while others form the foundation of a whole school of art.

Art as a fantasy has been one of my earliest experiences. I suppose a lot of my childhood was a fantasy that involved getting away from things I didn't like. Fortunately it had some relationship to reality so that later I was able to, to some extent, act as I imagined I might.

Thou wouldst be loved? - then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love - a simple duty.

You know that saying 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing'? That's so true of positive psychology. Our latest research tells us that the pursuit of happiness is a delicate art. Certain approaches to seeking happiness are now known to backfire, whereas others are effective.

I got into pastoring because of the art form. I started a church, but I felt the art form needed to be freed for all people. A particular religion over others was never interesting to me. I wanted to talk to people about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human.

Art devoid of danger lacks many other things as well: pleasure, beauty, and the ability to save us. Poems that divest the self of its masks in order to analyze how those masks are made - by what means, by whom, for what ostensible purpose - those poems risk offering us refuge.

Hollywood used to be run by artists and people who loved artists... people who wanted to make movies for all the right reasons. For the love. The Art. To tell stories. Yes to make money as well, but it was about both. Now I feel, it's mostly about bottom line and making money.

There's this food that's evolved over thousands of years and people have made their own kind of thing, but it's not art-food, yet. It can be, but it's just food. It's the thing that people do because they have to, because they need it. I feel music is one of those things, too.

The thing is that the money issue looms so large in art now. And it has absolutely nothing to do with art. If you're painting goes for ten grand or a hundred grand, it doesn't make painting any easier. And it doesn't make the painting any better if it goes for a hundred grand.

Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, rather because it wishes to be art. However much the writer might long to be straightforward, these virtues are no longer available to him. He discovers that in being simple, honest, straightforward, nothing much happens.

To love someone whom you like is insignificant. To love someone because they love you is of no consequence. To love someone whom you do not like means you have learned a lesson in life. To love someone who blames you for no reason shows that you have learned the art of living.

One of the main reasons I am so drawn to Hitchcock is that he planned his shots way in advance on story-boards, which he designed like classic paintings (he was an art connoisseur). It's why he found shooting on set boring - because he had already composed the film in his head.

In several speeches and interviews, Donald Trump has brought up his book 'The Art of the Deal,' and said that Obama would have negotiated a better deal with Iran if he had read it. It got even more awkward for Obama when Iran was like, 'It worked for us - you guys got screwed!'

The aim of art is to project an inner vision into the world, to state in aesthetic creation the deepest psychic and personal experiences of a human being. It is to enable those experiences to be intelligible and generally recognized within the total framework of an ideal world.

Speaking for myself, art differs from writing in that I never know what I'm going to paint until I paint it, so it's almost like automatic writing. A writer, on the other hand, can't help but know what he's going to write, because the activity demands a degree of premeditation.

Art is elemental. Reason alone as it's expressed in the sciences can't be man's complete answer to reality, and it can't express everything that man can, wants to, and has to express. I think God built this into man. Art along with science is the highest gift God has given him.

Poetry, unlike music, is a meta-art, and relies upon non-physical structures for the production of its effects. In its case, the medium is syntax, grammar and logical continuity, which together form the carrier-wave of plain sense within which its deeper meanings are broadcast.

The ideal form for a poem, essay, or fiction, is that which the ideal writer would evolve spontaneously. One in whom the powers of expression fully responded to the state of feeling, would unconsciously use that variety in the mode of presenting his thoughts, which Art demands.

And when he is obliged to take the life of any one, to do so when there is a proper justification and manifest reason for it; but above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.

The Battle of Waterloo is a work of art with tension and drama with its unceasing change from hope to fear and back again, changewhich suddenly dissolves into a moment of extreme catastrophe, a model tragedy because the fate of Europe was determined within this individual fate.

The army from Asia introduced a foreign luxury to Rome; it was then the meals began to require more dishes and more expenditure . . . the cook, who had up to that time been employed as a slave of low price, become dear: what had been nothing but a metier was elevated to an art.

We live in an era where each of us has a massive catalog of film and television available through the internet at the swipe of a finger. To get folks out of their homes for a piece of art or entertainment, I think you need to offer something they can't get on Netflix or Amazon.

The awesome thing about lettering - which is different from many forms of art - is that you can actually see your mistakes. There are sophomore mistakes that people do at the beginning that you spot everywhere. For example, a lot of people make 'W's by turning 'M's upside down.

Trust yourself, your intuition, your desires and your pursuits. Don't question yourself too much. Place one foot ahead of the other and go forward steadily. No one will understand as you do the work, the art, you are making - so no need to look for audience approval or ratings.

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