Explore Quotes on Art

People often say to me - how clever you are! How brilliant to be able to go from ballet to theatre as you do. I answer that it is not clever at all. It is the gift of looking at oneself coolly, of calculating the future objectively. I could see the danger signals as far as ballet was concerned before anyone else did, that's all.

I think you can be contemporary without taking your clothes off.

And I saw Australia anew through her eyes. And I realised what a tremendously thrilling country it was. And ever since then I have been coming back regularly.

As an artist, even if you are putting out something really dark and disturbing, that's good because it's opening a discussion. Always in the back of my mind is this thought that the world has to be a better place with you in it.

Is it acting a true vocation?... I say it is a gift...And fame? Neither sought nor expected... still confounds and amazes and disturbs. Whatever the reason... I am so very delighted that it did happen... I would not have missed it for the world.

The last word always belongs to the audience. ... Yes, that is a most powerful feeling. One that is worth savouring on dark nights when the wind blows. On the other hand, there is no way of ever knowing, when one steps out into that circle, if the connection will be made.

Knowing that one dies... has brought with it a peace that before was elusive to say the least... it is useless, if at times pleasurable, to fantasise about the future. It is not here and it is not known. In the same way the past is just that. Past. Gone. To be relinquished. 'What's done cannot be undone.' Now is what it's about... Life is still to be lived, suffered, enjoyed, battled over.

Depression is the flip side of creative inspiration but it can be useful. It's telling you to stop for a little bit. You can become so fully absorbed in the world of creative work that it can lead to some imbalance in your life.

Writing reminds you that you're never alone. Writing and reading is to be optimistic.

But now, the final feeling... is one of gratitude that the journey was undertaken. Looking at the past has meant, for the first time, being able to let it go.

I truly feel absolutely at home on the stage. It's very comfortable to me. It's very much my workplace, very much my workplace. I feel that an audience and I are happy with one another. I'm grateful for that.

Living where I live New York I don't think anyone's going to make a fuss. But it is more deeply satisfying because it's of your place and means that you aren't forgotten; someone's noticed what you have been doing with your life.

For the Tintin books were my emotional universe. To read them felt quite simply like being loved: in advance and by an entire world of pure possibility, my future. But to write to the author was to reach out for the lover. Even today, the power of reading one remains visceral: each book acts as a form of transportation, not just to the emotional landscape of this first literary love affair but to very specific memories.

I didn't mind my own company as a child; I was happy playing alone in the sandpit.

All is egotism. The only people whose mainspring is not egotism are the dead and perhaps idiots.

For me, spirit is the impulse towards life, the Eros in a person leaping forward, whereas soul refers to something possibly long.. suffering, where meanings are made, where there is a sense of this gathering of perceptions, that our death is not the most important thing, nor our life.

In the times in which we live it is far too restricting to say that art can only be found in art galleries and not touch people's everyday lives. I want to use any means that are necessary to communicate with people what I feel about things. There are no rules. And if there are rules, then you may as well break them.

Ah, whimsical. It's terrible the way words get attached to you like barnacles. As is what I do is acting on a 'whim'. If only these were gifts from God when I get an idea, but everything I have done that I really love has had a lot of hard work behind it.

From time to time it has struck me that as a writer, I've somehow managed to live my life as I had long ago dreamt of doing, based on the Tintin paradigm: on my toes, travelling, senses attentuated, everything just adventure and exploration, curiosity and problem-solving.

Wherever you are in the world, there's always something about the Australian light. There's something about the sharpness of it, something about the clarity of it, something about the colours of Australia. And hopefully, something optimistic about Australian painting too.

I've always thought that there shouldn't be any limit to the things that are well designed. And I think that people who consider that art should only be kept for art galleries and doesn't have a role in public life, I think that's too narrow.