Quotes about art

22 genuine quotes about art, by Wilde, Camus and Zappa, from works including Following the Equator and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Among the speakers: Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, Zarathustra and Carl Streator. Some are a character speaking, not the author: each entry says who speaks, and to whom. 7 more quotes on art circulate under these names but are not their words as shared; they are listed at the end.

  1. Classic: a book which people praise and don’t read.

    Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897), Chapter XXV, epigraph from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, said by Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

  2. Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.

    Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897), Chapter XV, epigraph from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, said by Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

  3. Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

    Oscar Wilde, Intentions (1891), The Decay of Lying, said by Vivian.

  4. One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

    Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Prologue, section 5 (Zarathustra’s Prologue, Zarathustras Vorrede), said by Zarathustra.

  5. Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

    Oscar Wilde, Intentions (1891), The Critic as Artist, Part II, said by Gilbert.

  6. All art is quite useless.

    Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), The Preface.

  7. A writer owes nothing except to his writing.

    Charles Bukowski, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998), Journal entry of 28 August 1991, 11:28 PM, final paragraph.

  8. By definition, he cannot today put himself at the service of those who make history: he serves those who undergo it.

    Albert Camus, Albert Camus, speech at the Nobel Banquet, Stockholm City Hall, 10 December 1957; official French transcript on NobelPrize.org, copyright Éditions Gallimard, Nobel Banquet speech, Stockholm, 10 December 1957; paragraph beginning Le rôle de l’écrivain.

  9. That is why true artists despise nothing: they require themselves to understand rather than judge.

    Albert Camus, Albert Camus, speech at the Nobel Banquet, Stockholm City Hall, 10 December 1957; official French transcript on NobelPrize.org, copyright Éditions Gallimard, Nobel Banquet speech, Stockholm, 10 December 1957; paragraph beginning Je ne puis vivre personnellement sans mon art.

  10. The problem with every story is you tell it after the fact.

    Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby (2002), Chapter 1, opening sentence, said by Carl Streator.

Show all 22 quotes about artShow fewer
  1. From the beginning, all the world over, lack of originality has been reckoned the chief characteristic and best recommendation of an active, businesslike and practical man

    Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869), Part 3, chapter 1, said by the narrator.

  2. Art is not a thing; it is a way.

    Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great (1894), Volume 10, To the Homes of Great Teachers (Memorial Edition, 1916), ‘Thomas Arnold’, opening paragraph.

  3. All the good music’s already been written by people with wigs and stuff on.

    Frank Zappa, Batya Friedman and Steve Lyons, ‘Revolt Against Mediocrity’, The Progressive, November 1986, ‘Revolt Against Mediocrity’, The Progressive, November 1986, answer about the composer’s function in society.

  4. Music is the only religion that really delivers the goods.

    Frank Zappa, D. Housing, ‘Zappa Comes Clean’, Berkeley Barb, 27 March–2 April 1980, D. Housing, ‘Zappa Comes Clean’, Berkeley Barb, 27 March–2 April 1980; exchange about truth, fear and getting back to work.

  5. What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well as you, do not write it.

    André Gide, Fruits of the Earth (1897), Envoi (the closing address), Les Nourritures terrestres (1897).

  6. Everything has already been said; but as no one listens, one must always begin again.

    André Gide, André Gide, Le Traité du Narcisse (Théorie du symbole), opening paragraphs; French transcription on Wikisource, Le Traité du Narcisse (Théorie du symbole), opening discussion of the myth of Narcissus, immediately before the retelling.

  7. An actor is not a machine.

    Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe, interview with Richard Meryman, Marilyn Lets Her Hair Down About Being Famous, LIFE, 3 August 1962; full interview transcription published by The Marilyn Monroe Collection, Richard Meryman interview, LIFE, 3 August 1962; opening clause of the paragraph about creativity and an actor’s humanity.

  8. Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his blood.

    Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Part 1, chapter 7 (“Reading and Writing”, Vom Lesen und Schreiben), said by Zarathustra.

  9. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

    Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Preface.

  10. The poet is a pretender.

    Fernando Pessoa, Autopsychography (1932), First stanza, lines 1–4; Presença, no. 36, November 1932.

  11. or, if we trust Aristotle, no great genius has ever been without a touch of insanity.

    Seneca the Younger, On Tranquillity of Mind (60), Chapter 17, section 10 (De Tranquillitate Animi 17.10).

  12. Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

    Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854), Reading.

Check a quote about art

Shared under these names, but not theirs as shared

  1. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

    Not found. Credited to Oscar Wilde. It is not in Wilde’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. We all came out from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat’.

    Not found. Credited to Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works. Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé printed it in 1885 as the remark of an unnamed Russian writer; later retellings gave it to Dostoevsky.

  3. Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

    Paraphrase. Credited to André Gide. The idea is in The Counterfeiters (1925), Troisième partie, chapter XIV (Édouard talking to Bernard), Les Faux-monnayeurs (1925), p. 147 of the NRF edition read.

  4. There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

    Misattributed. Credited to Maya Angelou. A rewording of Zora Neale Hurston’s sentence in Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), not a sourced line from Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

  5. Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.

    Paraphrase. Credited to Frank Zappa. The idea is in D. Housing, ‘Zappa Comes Clean’, Berkeley Barb, 27 March–2 April 1980.

  6. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

    Misattributed. Credited to Frank Zappa. Often credited to Frank Zappa, but Martin Mull is the probable originator: printed Mull credits date to 1979, while a Zappa credit is documented by 1984. The first utterance remains unconfirmed.

  7. A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

    Misattributed. Credited to Maya Angelou. The saying derives from Joan Walsh Anglund’s 1967 verse, with pronouns changed. Its appearance on Maya Angelou’s 2015 stamp did not make it her composition.

Try