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An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn't exist, for the artist doesn't live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn't look for harmony but would simply live in it.

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art.

Unless the work of art has wholly exhausted its maker's attention, it fails. This is why works of great significance are demanding and why they are infinitely rewarding.

Art is the window to man's soul. Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world; nor could the world see the man within.

One does not devote one's life in art to shock an audience.

There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art.

An artist cannot be responsible for what people make of their art. An audience loathe giving up preconceived images of an artist.

Unlike life, a work of art never gets taken for granted: it is always viewed against its precursors and predecessors.