Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred cliches move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.(Casablanca, or, The Clichés Are Having a Ball)

When my words are concealedWith lies and disguises, truth and beyondInsecurities in the veil of trustBetrayal in bounds of liesIt’s just the charm of words darlingGiving the illusion of happiness inside misery

Writers and artists know that ethereal moment, when just one, fleeting something--a chill, an echo, the click of a lamp, a question—-ignites the flame of an entire work that blazes suddenly into consciousness.

The architect had not stopped to bother about columns and porticos, proportions or interiors, or any limitation upon the epic he sought to materialize; he had simply made a servant of Nature - art can go no further.

It's a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe in which most of us spend most of our time is not the only universe there is. I think it's healthy that people should have this experience.

She gave life a meaning. She was art, dressed like a painters pallet, bright and unaware of how goddam beautiful she could be turned into; with the right touch, her smile was the brush and her story was the canvas.

In a cement park across the street is this giant sculpture. It is a giant umbrella frame lying on its side. It's green. Stand under it, during a rainstorm, you'll still get wet - that's why it's art.

I wish art was like money in that the more I made, the more interest it developed and plentiful it became. Money makes money, and if art made art, there’s no prison in this country that could hold my creations.

Good art is like a sexy pair of lips—it has the potential to say so much, but prefers to have you do all the talking about it. Also, good art is fun to kiss and make out with (especially statues and portraits).

Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.

However my mother had once said, ‘When you go to art school, you’ll find everybody sitting around practicing how to do their signature'; and sure enough, there they were, some of them doing just that.

Those words . . . national and portrait. They were both to do with identity: the identity of a culture (place, language and history), the identity of an individual human being as an object for mimetic representation.

I had a dream about you. You were a statue made of bronze, and I was in love with you. I tried to be patient, but I wanted more action than you could give me, so eventually I fell in love with a water fountain.


So you have to be humble in dealing with the spaces and make sure they are used according to their unique purpose for which there is no alternative...art, if you like, is really a lack of alternatives."-Jonathan Meese

When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.