Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack read more

Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is, quite spectacularly I think, art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. It is art which will take the great human themes --love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself --and render them fully human. It may also, though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme, one as great and as rich as those others --should we call it "joy"?.

The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.

The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.

The fact that writers will go through so much to remain writers says something, perhaps everything. It would be far read more

The fact that writers will go through so much to remain writers says something, perhaps everything. It would be far easier (and nearly always more profitable) to become a real estate agent.

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink read more

You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become read more

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.

Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a read more

Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a mouse waltzes.

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of read more

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values.