Artful Quotes (page 98)
Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me? the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.
Anais Nin
To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.
George Orwell
Stigmata of LoveA light which lives on what the flames devour, a grey landscape surrounding me with scorch, a crucifixion by a single wound, a sky and earth that darken by each hour, a sob of blood whose red ribbon adornsa lyre without a pulse, and oils the torch, a tide which stuns and strands me on the reef, a scorpion scrambling, stinging in my chest--this is the wreath of love, this bed of thornsis where I dream of you stealing my rest, haunting these sunken ribs cargoed with grief. I...
Federico Garcia Lorca
After dinner or lunch or whatever it was -- with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what -- I said, "Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's...
Charles Bukowski
I went to school in drag, in art school and my day was completely different because everybody thought I was a chick. You should see me as a chick. So I went as a girl, as like an experiment and it worked really well and everyone was really nice to me but I couldn't talk obviously...you know train conductors were really cool to me on my commute...HA! I looked hot as a chick!
Gerard Way
The world is full of Guses--good-looking boys and girls who've been dealt the best possible genetic hand by parents and grandparents and great-grandparents who have been doing neither well nor badly for generations; who engender these decent kids and give them just enough to survive in the world but no more--no spectacular beauty, no uncontainable brilliance, no kingly, unstoppable ambition. Isn't it the task of art to acclaim these people, to ennoble them? Consider Olympia. A girl of the...
Michael Cunningham