Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.

Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.

Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.

It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.

Part of the joy of looking at art is getting in sync in some ways with the decision-making process that the artist used and the record that's embedded in the work.

You know, the way art history is taught, often there's nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same.

The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.

The only line that's wrong in Shakespeare is 'holding a mirror up to nature.' You hold a magnifying glass up to nature. As an actor you just enlarge it enough so that your audience can identify with the situation. If it were a mirror, we would have no art.

I would prefer to have a more appealing job. If I could still change careers, I would prefer it. This unfortunate art is made for long beards and ugly faces rather than for a relatively well-endowed woman.

It is in fact agreed that I am the plague, the cholera of the benevolent and generous men who are interested in art and that, when I show myself with my plasters, even the Emperor of the Sahara would flee.

I'm actually doing a show. from my shed. on the internet. but it won't be music or anything, it's more to do with drinking and smoking. it's an art piece.

Zen, per se, is not just an art, it's not just a religion, it's a realisation.