Famous Quotes & Sayings

D. H. Lawrence

We have lost the art of living, and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behavior, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead.

D. H. Lawrence

The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind.

D. H. Lawrence

The upshot was, my paintings must burn that English artists might finally learn.

D. H. Lawrence

Art is a form of supremely delicate awareness... meaning at-oneness, the state of being at one with the object.

D. H. Lawrence

After all, the world is not a stage-not to me: nor a theatre: nor a show-house of any sort. And art, especially novels, are not little theatres where the reader sits aloft and watches...and sighs, commiserates, condones and smiles. That's what you want a book to be: because it leaves you so safe and superior, with your two-dollar ticket to the show. And that's what my books are not and never will be...Whoever reads me will be in the thick of the scrimmage, and if he doesn't like it if he wants a safe seat in the audience-let him read someone else.

D. H. Lawrence

Why has mankind had such a craving to be imposed upon? Why this lust after imposing creeds, imposing deeds, imposing buildings, imposing language, imposing works of art? The thing becomes an imposition and a weariness at last. Give us things that are alive and flexible, which won't last too long and become an obstruction and a weariness. Even Michelangelo becomes at last a lump and a burden and a bore. It is so hard to see past him.

D. H. Lawrence

Art- speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day and that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth. The truth lives from day to day, and the marvelous Plato of yesterday is chiefly bosh today.

D. H. Lawrence

What one does in one's art, that is the breath of one's being. What one does in one's life, that is a bagatelle for the outsiders to fuss about.

D. H. Lawrence

Design in art, is a recognition of the relation between various things, various elements in the creative flux. You can't invent a design. You recognize it, in the fourth dimension. That is, with your blood and your bones, as well as with your eyes.

D. H. Lawrence

Oh literature, oh the glorious Art, how it preys upon the marrow in our bones. It scoops the stuffing out of us, and chucks us aside. Alas!

D. H. Lawrence

It's not art for art's sake, it's art for my sake.

D. H. Lawrence

Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

D. H. Lawrence

I can't bear art that you can walk round and admire. A book should be either a bandit or a rebel or a man in the crowd.

D. H. Lawrence

The artist usually sets out -- or used to -- to point a moral and adorn a tale. The tale, however, points the other way, as a rule. Two blankly opposing morals, the artist's and the tale's. Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper functions of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

D. H. Lawrence

I have lived among enough painters and around studios to have had all the theories - and how contradictory they are - rammed down my throat. A man has to have a gizzard like an ostrich to digest all the brass-tacks and wire nails of modern art theories.

D. H. Lawrence

Literature is a toil and a snare, a curse that bites deep.

D. H. Lawrence

Since obscenity is the truth of our passion today, it is the only stuff of art -- or almost the only stuff.

D. H. Lawrence

The business of art is to reveal the relation between man and his environment.

D. H. Lawrence

The picture must all come out of the artist's inside. It is the image that lives in the consciousness, alive like a vision, but unknown.

D. H. Lawrence

A museum is not a first-hand contact: it is an illustrated lecture. And what one wants is the actual vital touch.

D. H. Lawrence

Every true artist is the salvation of every other. Only artists produce for each other a world that is fit to live in.

Crystal Reed

Honesty in art inspires and moves me. I am passionate about creating truthful experiences as much as I love being the spectator to a brilliant body of work.

Crystal Gayle

It used to be that Nashville would work to develop promising artists.

Conrad Veidt

It is my greatest joy to live a really good part, even though it imposes great strain. An artist is tired but proud when he has created a great work of art. So it is with the actor who really lives a great role and is proud of the part he played.

Conrad Veidt

I have no illusions about my art. I am what the public made me and, consequently, I am not likely to forget my debt to them.

Conrad Hall

Painting and writing are solitary arts.

Conrad Hall

With today's fast films, you can light the way your eye sees the scene. You can abuse the film and create subtleties in contrast with light and exposure, diffusion and filters. That's what makes it an art.

Conor Oberst

Much of appreciating art or music is really the interpretation of the listener. To a certain extent it's projection - it's what people need or lack in themselves that they then put upon these people that they admire.

Conor Oberst

Art is essentially communication. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. That's why people make art, so other people can relate to it.

Conor Oberst

The worst thing you can do as an artist is to repeat yourself.

Clint Black

I wanted to be the perfect artist. I'd do three hours of media interviews a day, going to every radio station I could squeeze in. I'd sign autographs after the show until everybody left.

Clifton Fadiman

Science fiction is a kind of archaeology of the future.

Clint Eastwood

Always keep your ego in check and not be afraid to listen. Listening is a great art form.