The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.

You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul.

Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, in another, the creations, of their age.

Art postulates communion, and the artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself.

The artist is the lover of Nature, therefore he is her slave and her master.

Most of the faint intimations of immortality of which we are occasionally aware would seem to arise out of Art or the materials of Art.

What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have.

Art imitates Nature in this: not to dare is to dwindle.

Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn.

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.