Wise Words

Thoughts on Art from creative people born February 21:

from French author Anaïs Nin (The Diary of Anais Nin, Cities of the Interior, Under a Glass Bell, Delta of Venus: Erotica) (1903-1977):

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.

I write emotional algebra.

No matter what disintegrating influence I was experiencing, the writing was an act of wholeness.

--

from English-born American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W. H. Auden (The Age of Anxiety); also noted for "Funeral Blues," "Musee de Beaux-Artes," "September 1, 1939," The Shield of Achilles (1907-1973):

A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.

Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.

Art is born of humiliation.

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love.

Let me see what I wrote so I know what I think.

--

from American Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Nina Simone (Lifetime Achievement); noted for "I Loves You, Porgy" (Grammy Hall of Fame Award), "I Put a Spell on You," Ain’t Got No/I’ve Got Life" "My Baby Just Cares for Me," "Feeling Good" (1933-2003):

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

Music is an art and art has its own rules. And one of them is that you must pay more attention to it than anything else in the world, if you are going to be true to yourself. And if you don't do it - and you are an artist - it punishes you.

How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?

--

from American author David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest, The Pale King, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again) (1962-2008):

The job of the first eight pages is not to have the reader want to throw the book at the wall, during the first eight pages.

Look, man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is?

The point of books is to combat loneliness.

How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.

Every love story is a ghost story.

If you spend enough time reading or writing, you find a voice, but you also find certain tastes. You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers ... becomes a source of unbelievable joy. It’s like eating candy for the soul. And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don’t have that in their lives make it through the day.