William Gaddis

Fearful of missing anything, he read on, filled with this anticipation which was half terror, of coming upon something which would touch him, not simply touch him but lift him and carry him away.

The Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa….Leonardo had eye trouble….Art couldn’t explain it….But now we’re safe, since science can explain it. Maybe Milton wrote Paradise Lost because he was blind? And Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony because he was deaf…

Power doesn’t corrupt people; people corrupt power.

It is a naked city. Faith is not pampered, nor hope encouraged; there is no place to lay one’s exhaustion: but instead pinnacles skewer it undisguised against vacancy.

How some of the writers I come across get through their books without dying of boredom is beyond me.

Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it’s right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of…recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it.

There is no art without intention.

Good art will speak to you if you give it a chance.

One of the things about creativity is you can be in denial about these things. When I found out I had cancer, there were four hours in which I was pounding my head on the marble kitchen top saying, “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it.” But then I felt as if this little army in uniform was flooding me. They had come to help me fight it. I felt really strong about it after that. It was one of the strongest periods of my life.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Mother’s taste was eclectic and ranged from the ancient world to the contemporary from Europe to the U.S.

The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

The essence of all Art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.

Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course.

Can anybody be given creativity? No. Only equipment to develop it if it’s in them in the first place.

A museum has to renew its collection to be alive, but that does not mean we give on important old works.

The conventional notions of art have changed, and a lot of things done today are considered works of art that would have been rejected in the past.

The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

Truth exists in art.

An artist can only be evaluated after he’s dead. At the 11th hour he might do something that will eclipse everything else.