Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.
Charles SimicRead
Making art in America is about saving one's soul.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the profound personal and spiritual significance of creating art in America.
Charles Simic's quote highlights the idea that the act of making art serves as a vital expression of one's inner self and identity, particularly within the American context. It suggests that, amidst societal challenges and pressures, engaging in art is a way to preserve and nurture one's soul, making it both a personal and cultural necessity.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of art in society, this quote can illustrate how artistic expression serves a deeper purpose.
Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.
I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!
The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then-poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.
A poem is an invitation to a voyage. As in life, we travel to see fresh sights.
If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.
We name one thing and then another. That’s how time enters poetry. Space, on the other hand, comes into being through the attention we pay to each word. The more intense our attention, the more space, and there’s a lot of space inside words.
Sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure. To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter of an inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky.
I think literary theory satisfied a deep love I have for big, encompassing narratives about the world and how it works - which are usually, in the end, more creative visions unto themselves than illuminating explanations.
O Black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
I can talk endlessly about characters, or why someone did this or that, and what that dynamic and interaction is. I really love it, and I think that actors really respond positively to the fact that I like to talk about that stuff, because I'm not sure that all directors do.
Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.
No matter where I am working, I cannot make a film without 100% creative control and final cut. If there is such a guarantee, I can work anywhere.
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