“All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.”

“In an era ruled by materialism and unstable geopolitics, art must be restored to the center of public education.”

“I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with.”

“For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art.”

“The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.”

“Criticism is the windows and chandeliers of art: it illuminates the enveloping darkness in which art might otherwise rest only vaguely discernible, and perhaps altogether unseen.”

“Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.”

“Book-jacket design may become a lost art, like album-cover design, without which late-20th-century iconography would have been pauperized.”

“Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.”

“The giant white cube is now impeding rather than enhancing the rhythms of art. It preprograms a viewer's journey, shifts the emphasis from process to product, and lacks individuality and openness. It's not that art should be seen only in rutty bombed-out environments, but it should seem alive.”

“Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.”

“Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”

“Ability is the art of getting credit for all the home runs somebody else hits.”

“If you are going to break a Law of Art, make the crime interesting.”

“Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.”

“Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?”

“I'm very much into the costuming of any character that I portray and it's one of the great things about making movies is it's a collaborative art form so you get all these artists who are looking specifically about for this instance your character's costume and what that might tell about your character.”

“The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.”

“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.”

“It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.”

“To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest we must learn to read the childish soul as we might a piece of music. Then, by simply changing the key, we keep up the attraction and vary the song.”