Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty; but learn to be happy alone.
Saul BellowRead
I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art captures our focus, grounding us in the present despite the chaos around us.
This quote by Saul Bellow suggests that art serves as a powerful tool for focusing our minds and emotions, allowing us to pause and reflect amidst the distractions of everyday life. In a world filled with noise and clutter, art can help us find clarity and meaning, drawing our attention to what truly matters.
Themes
ArtAttentionDistractionFocusReflection
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the value of creativity in education, one might say, 'As Saul Bellow pointed out, art creates a necessary pause amidst distraction.'
More from Saul Bellow
All quotes βWhen we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
Saul BellowRead
In here, the human bosom -- mine, yours, everybody's -- there isn't just one soul. There's a lot of souls. But there are two main ones, the real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. 'If thou canst not love, what art thou?' Are you with me?
Saul BellowRead
I've discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, 'To hell with you.'
Saul BellowRead
I see that I've become a really bad correspondent. It's not that I don't think of you. You come into my thoughts often. But when you do it appears to me that I owe you a particularly grand letter. And so you end in the "warehouse of good intentions": "Can't do it now." "Then put it on hold." This is one's strategy for coping with old age, and with death--because one can't die with so many obligations in storage. Our clever species, so fertile and resourceful in denying its weaknesses.
Saul BellowRead
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul BellowRead
Similar quotes
Tom Sleigh's poetry is hard-earned and well founded. I great admire the way it refuses to cut emotional corners and yet achieves a sense of lyric absolution.
Seamus HeaneyRead
Governments have always been wary of the arts because they're wayward and ambiguous and because they deal with feelings rather than facts.
Richard EyreRead
When I was 21 I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for The Simpsons who'd briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life.
Zadie SmithRead
Good art theory must smell of the studio, although its language should differ from the household talk of painters and sculptors.
Rudolf ArnheimRead
Music isn't about music, it's about life.
Herbie HancockRead
The experience of reading a printed comic book will never change, but now, thanks to the digital age, there are many different ways to enjoy the same story. Digital comic books, of course, can be interactive in many different ways, allowing the reader to feel like a participant in the story.
Stan LeeRead