Aphorisms Galore!

Art and Literature

44 aphorisms  ·  14 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/c4btvpfg  ·   Fair (841 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Some editors are failed writers, but then, so are most writers.

T. S. Eliot, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/1kb8kpsn  ·   Fair (363 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after one grows up.

Pablo Picasso, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/lrnyb5qs  ·   Fair (346 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Art is the lie that makes us realize the truth.

Pablo Picasso, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/1ucvbvaf  ·   Fair (911 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

No sane man will dance.

Cicero, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/6kpvlbo7  ·   Fair (880 ratings)  ·  submitted 1999

Picasso is a communist. Neither am I.

Salvador Dalí, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/molfssqk  ·   Fair (820 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Art is anything you can get away with.

Terence Trent D'Arby, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/8dgit6e3  ·   Fair (1198 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

Joseph Conrad, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/qdh9azfp  ·   Fair (881 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself.

Salvador Dalí, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/2drhezti  ·   Fair (881 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.

Anton Chekhov, (advice to a novice playwright), in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/nsr67v4t  ·   Fair (944 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

Gilbert K. Chesterton, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/i0nu42ok  ·   Fair (1224 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.

Tom Clancy, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/xrmys3sk  ·   Fair (358 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

Luciano Pavarotti, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/p6bwfqfr  ·   Fair (702 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

P. J. O'Rourke, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/o5xbszuz  ·   Fair (356 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

Flannery O'Connor, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/n6fwvz07  ·   Fair (352 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.

Flannery O'Connor, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/is8fdtaa  ·   Fair (1041 ratings)  ·  submitted 1999

Love affairs have always greatly interested me, but I do not greatly care for them in books or moving pictures. In a love affair, I wish to be the hero, with no audience present.

E. W. Howe, in Art and Literature and Love and Hate

tiny.ag/1zzynlyn  ·   Fair (439 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.

Gilbert Highet, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/airwcz94  ·   Fair (1078 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out.

G. C. Lichtenberg, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/bkfg47jr  ·   Fair (887 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

I didn't like the play. But I saw it under unfavorable circumstances -- the curtains were up.

Groucho Marx, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/yuezt1iy  ·   Fair (377 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

A painting in a museum probably hears more foolish remarks than anything else in the world.

Edmond Jules Goncourt, in Art and Literature