“It is the good of art that art remains the one true way possible of speaking the truth.” Browning

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso

“How rare it is to find a soul quiet enough to hear God speak.” — Francois Fenelon

“Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.” — Henri Nouwen

“Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act–truth is always subversive.” — Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after he grows up.” — Pablo Picasso

“Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.” — John F. Kennedy

“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts; such is the obligation of the artist.” — Robert Schumann

“Art is not a handicraft. It is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” — Leo Tolstoy

“Art is the child of nature.” - Longfellow

“To any artist worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth.” Auguste Rodin

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” - Albert Einstein

“The difference between the artist and the non artist is that the artist never stops playing.” — Alex Mozart

Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it at the bud.” — Alex Osborn

“Art is not what you see, but what you make other people see.” Edgar Degas

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London (1876-1916), American writer and novelist

“The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.” — Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), American novelist and storyteller

“A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.” — Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Ukranian-born English writer

“The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” — Mary Heaton Vorse (1881-1966), American writer

“In my own experience, nothing is harder for the developing writer than overcoming his anxiety that he is fooling himself and cheating or embarrassing his family and friends. To most people, even those who don’t read much, there is something special and vaguely magical about writing, and it is not easy for them to believe that someone they know - someone quite ordinary in many respects - can really do it.” — John Gardner (1912-1982), American novelist and writer

“I see only one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, then my entire world crumbles into nothing.” — Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle, 1783-1842), French novelist

“I think that one’s art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows.” — Emily Carr (1871-1945), Canadian artist and writer

“Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words … By means of art we are sometimes sent - dimly, briefly - revelations unattainable by reason.” — Aleksander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, b. 1918, Russian novelist