I didn’t plan on either children or writing. Once I realized that writing satisfied me in some enormous way, I had to make adjustments. The writing was always marginal in terms of time when the children were small. But it was major in terms of my head. I always thought that women could do a lot of things. All the women I knew did nine or ten things at one time. I always understood that women worked, they went to church, they managed their houses, they managed somebody else’s houses, they raised their children, they raised somebody else’s children, they taught. I wouldn’t say it’s not hard, but why wouldn’t it be? All important things are hard. – Toni Morrison

It is the form that allows a writer the greatest opportunity to explore human experience…For that reason, reading a novel is potentially a significant act. Because there are so many varieties of human experience, so many kinds of interaction between humans, and so many ways of creating patterns in the novel that can’t be created in a short story, a play, a poem or a movie. The novel, simply, offers more opportunities for a reader to understand the world better, including the world of artistic creation. That sounds pretty grand, but I think it’s true. – Don DeLillo

It is the form that allows a writer the greatest opportunity to explore human experience…For that reason, reading a novel is potentially a significant act. Because there are so many varieties of human experience, so many kinds of interaction between humans, and so many ways of creating patterns in the novel that can’t be created in a short story, a play, a poem or a movie. The novel, simply, offers more opportunities for a reader to understand the world better, including the world of artistic creation. That sounds pretty grand, but I think it’s true. – Don DeLillo

There is no art without contemplation. – Robert Henri

We suffered for our art. You have to suffer for our art as well! – Terry Gilliam

To create art with all the passion in one’s soul is to live art with all the beauty in one’s heart. – Aberjhani

For all the pain you suffered, my mama. For all the torment of your past and future years, my mama. For all the anguish this picture of pain will cause you. For the unspeakable mystery that brings good fathers and sons into the world and lets a mother watch them tear at each other’s throats. For the Master of the Universe, whose suffering world I do not comprehend. For dreams of horror, for nights of waiting, for memories of death, for the love I have for you, for all the things I remember, and for all the things I should remember but have forgotten, for all these I created this painting—an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment. – Chaim Potok

For all the pain you suffered, my mama. For all the torment of your past and future years, my mama. For all the anguish this picture of pain will cause you. For the unspeakable mystery that brings good fathers and sons into the world and lets a mother watch them tear at each other’s throats. For the Master of the Universe, whose suffering world I do not comprehend. For dreams of horror, for nights of waiting, for memories of death, for the love I have for you, for all the things I remember, and for all the things I should remember but have forgotten, for all these I created this painting—an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment. – Chaim Potok

It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment; heroically, one must force it on. – Virginia Woolf

It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment; heroically, one must force it on. – Virginia Woolf

Art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament. – Émile Zola

Watch a French housewife as she makes her way slowly along the loaded stalls… searching for the peak of ripeness and flavor… What you are seeing is a true artist at work, patiently assembling all the materials of her craft, just as the painter squeezes oil colors onto his palette ready to create a masterpiece. – Keith Floyd

Watch a French housewife as she makes her way slowly along the loaded stalls… searching for the peak of ripeness and flavor… What you are seeing is a true artist at work, patiently assembling all the materials of her craft, just as the painter squeezes oil colors onto his palette ready to create a masterpiece. – Keith Floyd

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. – Albert Einstein

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. – Albert Einstein

I suddenly knew that religion, God – something beyond everyday life – was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness – a pretense that things are real, due to one’s longing for them. It struck me that this was somehow tied up with what the Vicar said about religion being an extension of art – and then I had a glimpse of how religion can really cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful. I found myself saying: ‘Sacrifice is the secret – you have to sacrifice things for art and it’s the same with religion; and then the sacrifice turns out to be a gain.’ Then I got confused and I couldn’t hold on to what I meant – until Miss Blossom remarked: ‘Nonsense, duckie – it’s prefectly simple. You lose yourself in something beyond yourself and it’s a lovely rest.’ I saw that, all right. Then I thought: ‘But that’s how Miss Marcy cured her sorrow, too – only she lost herself in other people instead of in religion.’ Which way of life was best – hers or the Vicar’s? I decided that he loves God and merely likes the villagers, whereas she loves the villagers and merely likes God – and then I suddenly wondered if I could combine both ways, love God and my neighbor equally. Was I really willing to? – Dodie Smith

I suddenly knew that religion, God – something beyond everyday life – was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness – a pretense that things are real, due to one’s longing for them. It struck me that this was somehow tied up with what the Vicar said about religion being an extension of art – and then I had a glimpse of how religion can really cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful.

I found myself saying: ‘Sacrifice is the secret – you have to sacrifice things for art and it’s the same
with religion; and then the sacrifice turns out to be a gain.’ Then I got confused and I couldn’t hold on to what I meant – until Miss Blossom remarked: ‘Nonsense, duckie – it’s prefectly simple. You lose yourself in something beyond yourself and it’s a lovely rest.’

I saw that, all right. Then I thought: ‘But that’s how Miss Marcy cured her sorrow, too – only she lost herself in other people instead of in religion.’ Which way of life was best – hers or the Vicar’s? I decided that he loves God and merely likes the villagers, whereas she loves the villagers and merely likes God – and then I suddenly wondered if I could combine both ways, love God and my neighbor equally. Was I really willing to? – Dodie Smith

Books can ignite fires in your mind, because they carry ideas for kindling, and art for matches. – Gary D. Schmidt