Famous Quotes & Sayings

Jorge Luis Borges

A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end. This is even stronger in the case of the artist. Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one's art. One must accept it.

Jorge Luis Borges

It is worth remembering that every writer begins with a naively physical notion of what art is. A book for him or her is not an expression or a series of expressions, but literally a volume, a prism with six rectangular sides made of thin sheets of papers which should include a cover, an inside cover, an epigraph in italics, a preface, nine or ten parts with some verses at the beginning, a table of contents, an ex libris with an hourglass and a Latin phrase, a brief list of errata, some blank pages, a colophon and a publication notice: objects that are known to constitute the art of writing.

Jorge Luis Borges

The art of writing is mysterious; the opinions we hold are ephemeral , and I prefer the Platonic idea of the Muse to that of Poe, who reasoned, or feigned to reason, that the writing of a poem is an act of the intelligence. It never fails to amaze me that the classics hold a romantic theory of poetry, and a romantic poet a classical theory.

Jorge Luis Borges

The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful.

Jorge Luis Borges

Poetry remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art.

Jorge Luis Borges

Two aesthetics exist: the passive aesthetic of mirrors and the active aesthetic of prisms. Guided by the former, art turns into a copy of the environment's objectivity or the individual's psychic history. Guided by the latter, art is redeemed, makes the world into its instrument, and forges, beyond spatial and temporal prisons, a personal vision.

Jorge Luis Borges

All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

Jorge Luis Borges

A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

Jordi Molla

Im inspired by throwing out any darkness that is inside of me. For me, art cures.

Jonny Lee Miller

Chess is one thing, but if we get to the point computers can best humans in the arts-those splendid, millennia-old expressions of the heart and soul of human existence-then why bother existing? to produce human art a computer would have to find, feel, absorb reality to the point it is overcome, to the point it sobs for release. A computer perhaps could replicate every possibility but could never transfer the energy art requires to exist in the first place.

Jonny Lee Miller

Computers creating art is an upsetting concept mostly because of what it means about humans.

Jonathan Winters

I began painting well before I started doing comedy. In fact, when I came out of the war in 1946, I enrolled in art school in Dayton, Ohio. I painted for three years, and then show business took hold.

Jonny Greenwood

I think it should be ambitious and good music does deal with life and art and all these wonderful things.

Jonny Lang

Probably my favorite artists to listen to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder - I haven't gone back in a really long time and really listened to them - my first guitar influences. It's been awhile since I revisited that.

Jonny Lang

Some of my influences are black gospel artists so I definitely want to do a soul-gospel type thing.

Jonny Lang

I've been getting into different gospel artists; Aretha Franklin is someone I've been listening to a lot of.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Like art, like music, like so many other disciplines, prayer can only be appreciated when you actually spend time in it. Spending time with the Master will elevate your thinking. The more you pray, the more will be revealed. You will appreciate not only the greatness of prayer, but the greatness of God.

Joni Mitchell

When the spirit of child's play enters into the creative process, it's a wonderful force and something to be nurtured.

Joni Mitchell

I sang in art school, just to get money to smoke.

Joni Mitchell

An artist needs a certain amount of turmoil and confusion.

Joni Mitchell

I certainly don't want to be an angry old artist.

Joni Mitchell

I think I would go further into fine arts, I think, if I were to continue.

Joni Mitchell

The coming of the kids hasn't come out in my art yet.

Joni Mitchell

The considerations of a corporation, especially now, have nothing to do with art or music.

Joni Mitchell

I conceived in art college at the age of 20, near the end of term.

Joni Mitchell

For the first time in my career, I'm working in a fine-arts arena, so I'm finally getting some intelligent reviews.

Joni Mitchell

Eventually, with success, I started to feel more and more isolated - like I didn't have a community of artists.

Joni Mitchell

Back then, I didn't have a big organization around me. I was just a kid with a guitar, traveling around. My responsibility basically was to the art, and I had extra time on my hands. There is no extra time now. There isn't enough time.

Joni Mitchell

That's one thing that's always, like, been a difference between, like, the performing arts, and being a painter, you know. A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that's it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it and that was it.

Joni Mitchell

I'm a fine artist working in a commercial arena, so that's my cross to bear

Joni Mitchell

When the world becomes a massive mess with nobody at the helm, it's time for artists to make their mark.

Joni Mitchell

Keep a good heart. That's the most important thing in life. It's not how much money you make or what you can acquire. The art of it is to keep a good heart.

Jonathan Swift

In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.