Art Quotes

One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.

        — T.S. Eliot - The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. Philip Massinger (1922)

Good artists copy; great artists steal.

        — Pablo Picasso

Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie.

        — Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails

If there's a movie of Neuromancer, what I really want the special effects guys to do is make you see, from Case's point of view, the little acid giggies: the little lines and trails coming off of things.

        — William Gibson

Out of the ashes of the music business, comes the rebirth of the musician business.

        — John Perry Barlow

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape...

        — Pablo Picasso

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

        — Charles Bukowski

Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.

        — Jean Cocteau

Buscad la belleza. Es la única protesta que merece la pena en este asqueroso mundo.

        — Ramón Trecet