Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
The easy part of being an artist is figuring out the message that everyone else is ready to hear. The hard part is waiting for the proper lull to make the announcement.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Being an artist involves both clarity of message and timing.
This quote by Mark Twain highlights the dual challenges faced by artists: the initial task of formulating a message that resonates with the audience and the far more daunting task of patiently waiting for the right moment to present that message. It underscores the importance of timing in communication and artistic expression, suggesting that even with a perfect message, it can fall flat if introduced at the wrong time.
Themes
ArtistMessageTimingExpressionCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about artistic challenges at a gallery opening.
More from Mark Twain
All quotes βYou can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
Mark TwainRead
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Mark TwainRead
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Mark TwainRead
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
Mark TwainRead
Some things you can't find out; but you will never know you can't by guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on experimenting until you find out that you can't find out.
Mark TwainRead
Similar quotes
There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.
Henri BergsonRead
Actors are responsible to the people we play.
Philip Seymour HoffmanRead
The most important thing about creativity is that you honor your creativity and you don't ever ignore it or go against what that creative image is telling you.
Lady GagaRead
Provided we can escape from the museums we carry around inside us, provided we can stop selling ourselves tickets to the galleries in our own skulls, we can begin to contemplate an art which re-creates the goal of the sorcerer: changing the structure of reality by the manipulation of living symbols ... Art tells gorgeous lies that come true.
Hakim BeyRead
We go to poetry, we go to literature in general, to be forwarded within ourselves.
Seamus HeaneyRead
Somehow I started introducing writing into my drawings, and after a time, the language took over and I started getting very involved with the handwriting and then the look of the handwriting.
Patti SmithRead