Quotes About Expression

Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism.

Nothing can touch a work of art less than critical words; all that comes of that are more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things are not as easy to understand and say as we might prefer to believe; most events are inexpressible, happening in a space where no word has ever set foot, and most inexpressible of all are works of art, mysterious existences, whose life continues as ours passes away.

I want to unfold. Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed, I am false.

A piece of art is good if it is born of necessity. This, its source, is its criterion; there is no other.

To be an artist means not to compute or count; it means to ripen as the tree, which does not force its sap, but stands unshaken in the storms of spring with no fear that summer might not follow.

Gehen Sie in sich. Erforschen Sie den Grund, der Sie schreiben heißt; prüfen Sie, ob er in der tiefsten Stelle Ihres Herzens seine Wurzeln ausstreckt, gestehen Sie sich ein, ob Sie sterben müssten, wenn es Ihnen versagt würde zu schreiben.

Erforschen Sie den Grund, der Sie schreiben heißt; prüfen Sie, ob er in der tiefsten Stelle Ihres Herzens seine Wurzeln ausstreckt.

A work of art is good if it is arisen out of necessity

do, you cried

Menulislah yang membantuku mengatasi rasa marah yang membakar di hati kebanyakan rakyat Palestina.

Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie-- Dust unto dust-- The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die As all men must; Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell-- Too strong to strive-- Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell, Buried alive; But rather mourn the apathetic throng-- The cowed and the meek-- Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong And dare not speak!

Words are your business, boy. Not just the word. Words are everything. The key to the rock, the answer to the question.

If only all the contradictory voices shouting inside my head would calm down and sing a song in unison, whatever it was I wouldn't care as long as they sang without dissonance.

I pour the red liquid over the white mound, watching it glisten and the vapor rising as Louis bends that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound.

Power, for the writer….lies in his ability to reveal if only a little bit more about the complexity of humanity.

I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth.

Tell them to teach them that when they call you nigger to make a rhyme with trigger it makes the gun backfire

Something in Mama's voice was vast and high, like a rainbow; yet something sad and deep, like when the organ played in church, was around Mama's words.

The work of art is, after all, an act of faith in our ability to communicate symbolically.

I yam what I yam!

So still and silent that they clash with the crowd in their very immobility; standing noisy in their silence; harsh as a cry of terror in their quietness.

What did I do To be so black And blue?

The unheard sounds came through, and each melodic line existed of itself, stood out clearly from all the rest, said its piece, and waited patiently for the other voices to speak.

All they wanted of me was one belch of affirmation and I'd bellow it out loud. Yes! Yes! YES! That was all anyone wanted of us, that we should be heard and not seen, and then heard only in one big optimistic chorus of yassuh, yassuh, yassuh!