I used to love to draw. I didn't want to go to art class because I felt that would be too corny when I was young, but architectural drafting was the cool thing to do because there was more precision. It taught me a lot about building and structures and doorways and frames and windowsills.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.

'Art or anti-art?' was the question I asked when I returned from Munich in 1912 and decided to abandon pure painting or painting for its own sake. I thought of introducing elements alien to painting as the only way out of a pictorial and chromatic dead end.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

Thou art not for the earth, nor for the Heaven the world is for thee, thou art not for the world.

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

I think it's the pain and suffering that drive you to become an artist. The art itself should be the pain, sort of exorcising every demon and making you feel like you're a person that matters.

My errors will point to thinking men the various roads, and will teach them the great art of treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it.

Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.

My interest is in completing an image that is spectacular beyond belief. My fidelity is to the image and the art and not to the bragging rights of making every stroke on every flower. I'm realistic.

Memory is a great artist. For every man and for every woman it makes the recollection of his or her life a work of art and an unfaithful record.

The real art of conducting consists in transitions.

Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.

Teachers believe they have a gift for giving; it drives them with the same irrepressible drive that drives others to create a work of art or a market or a building.

Art is not supposed to change the world, to change practical things, but to change perceptions. Art can change the way we see the world. Art can create an analogy.

The beauty of an art project is that you cannot always measure the impact, but one day it can become clear.

Once you learn to look at architecture not merely as an art more or less well or more or less badly done, but as a social manifestation, the critical eye becomes clairvoyant.

As an architect, you have to provide a shelter to enjoy art. And you have to love art. It's like when you make a concert hall. You must love music. This is the reason why you make the space, to enjoy music - making a space for art is the same thing.

You cannot say, 'Go! Go! Rah! Rah! Good move!' People want some emotion. Chess is an art and not a spectator sport.

I am trying to make art that relates to the deepest and most mythic concerns of human kind and I believe that, at this moment of history, feminism is humanism.

Don't you know that every perfect life would mean the end of art?

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

Filmmaking is a completely imperfect art form that takes years and, over those years, the movie tells you what it is. Mistakes happen, accidents happen and true great films are the results of those mistakes and the decisions that those directors make during those moments.

One of my aims was to be paid as well as a plumber. Plumber was better-paid than any performance artist who was always doing this for free. It is so important to make a good living from art. You know, John Cage, until he was 60, he couldn't pay electricity.

I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don't think they're doing art but are merely practicing a craft and working as good craftsmen. Being literate as a writer is good craft, is knowing your job, is knowing how to use your tools properly and not to damage the tools as you use them.

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

I have trouble with modern art. But in general, all art forms fascinate me - art is the way human beings express what we can't say in words.

The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.

The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.

I can't satisfy myself with just trying to tie all of my imagination into music, especially when music is not appreciated as an art form as much as it used to be.

It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it. Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone.

An art which isn't based on feeling isn't an art at all.

Art is nothing if you don't reach every segment of the people.

The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.

Rule of art: Cant kills creativity!

So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.

The message of great art is to disturb.

My activism always existed. My art gave me the platform to do something about the activism.

I can't think of anything worse, really, than to try to live up to someone else's expectations of what you should be. You don't make art by consensus.

The Chinese art world does not exist. In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination.

Art is the daughter of freedom.

To curb the machine and limit art to handicraft is a denial of opportunity.

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.

The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing.

Art challenges technology, but technology inspires the art.

I love art dealers. In some ways, they're my favorite people in the art world. Really. I love that they put their money where their taste is, create their own aesthetic universes, support artists, employ people, and do all of this while letting us see art for free. Many are visionaries.

Balancing hopes, desires and an appreciating of the possibilities with a clear-eyed assessment of the limitations: that is the art of choosing.

Music is an art that touches the depth of human existence; an art of sounds that crosses all borders.