Art Quotes

“It took the Metropolitan Museum of Art nearly 50 years to wake up to Pablo Picasso. It didn't own one of his paintings until 1946, when Gertrude Stein bequeathed that indomitable quasi-Cubistic picture of herself - a portrait of the writer as a sumo Buddha - to the Met, principally because she disliked the Museum of Modern Art.”

-- Jerry Saltz

“It seems almost backwards to me that my music seems the more emotional outlet, and the art stuff seems more about ideas.”

-- David Byrne

“The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.”

-- Paul Strand

“I've got tonnes of aboriginal and Native American art, but I'd like even more.”

-- Tori Amos

“Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.”

-- Ambrose Bierce

“If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it.”

-- John Lennon

“Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. For, those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow. Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.”

-- John Donne

“The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.”

-- William Hazlitt

“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”

-- Pablo Picasso

“An artist cannot fail it is a success to be one.”

-- Charles Horton Cooley