Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound.
Chinua Achebe
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES There is an art of which every man should be a master the art of reflection. If you are not a thinki... WILLIAM HART COLERIDGE Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good it is to control the mind.... GAUTAMA BUDDHA Art needs to be socialised, and you need a lot of context to understand that, and that doesn't m... PETER M. BRANT Wrestling needs to be about the art form again. It needs to be about painting a picture and having a... HULK HOGAN Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of... MARY SCHMICH The good moral work of art should have all the qualities that a good amoral work of art should have,... NORMAN MCLAREN Men are not suffering from the lack of good literature, good art, good theatre, good music, but from... HENRY MILLER Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you... C. JOYBELL C. Your life today is the result of a series of decisions you made that have caused you to arrive where... CHRIS PRENTISS A strong personal philosophy does more than sustain us through the tragedies of life. It also stains... CHRIS PRENTISS The answers are never "out there." All the answers are "in there," inside you, waiting to be discove... CHRIS PRENTISS The snapshots in CHINA: Portrait of a People are not meant to be works of art. I was too preoccupied... TOM CARTER Does it follow that the house has nothing in common with art and is architecture not to be included ... ADOLF LOOS “Art is everything you see. Boardgames are art, songs are art, books are art, art is a precious th... J C A ROWE Art's a very metaphysical activity. It's something that enriches the parameters of your life... JEFF KOONS It is specifically American, ... but that's not to say it's not universal. And I'm not fudging it. I... DAVID CRONENBERG I think a smart person today realizes that you have to be part of the art films that are done just f... HALLE BERRY Art is a mystery.A mystery is something immeasurable.In so far as every child and woman and man may ... E. E. CUMMINGS Art, well good art at least, takes you to a place you go during the experience of it, and then after... NILE RODGERS If God give you strength and courage, don't use it to intimidate people or overpower them, rather us... ANTHONY LICCIONE To be a good artist, you have to serve the work of art and allow it to be what it is supposed to be. LARRY WALL It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learn... ANDREI TARKOVSKY You're still lovely," Mor said a bit gently. Elain offered a half smile. "I suppose that war m... SARAH J. MAAS This is going to be one of the finest bonsai gardens in North America, if not the world. Bonsai is s... GEORGE BRIGGS You are not a bad person because you are gay. You are you because you are you and you were meant to ... TEGAN QUIN If you make art, people will talk about it. Some of the things they say will be nice, some won’t. ... NEIL GAIMAN As far back as history records people thinking, thinking people
have been befuddled by the mysteries... LEWIS N. ROE Choose your words before talking SOTONYE ANGA I absolutely consider fashion a form of art. Of course, there is some fashion that is not art at all... IRIS APFEL Some people act as though art that is for a mass audience is not good art, and I think this has been... BELL HOOKS Our senses and emotions are the great source of inspiration for creating compelling and interesting ... SERAFIMA The art here is playful enough to break down the boundaries of suspicion and fear some people have a... JAKE SENIUK Many atrocities, have been done in the name of the greater good. SARAH J. MAAS I think they all do it for the same reason. They have to believe that art is important to society an... JUDI JEDLICKA When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move. SUN TZU If only it be admitted that art may be unintelligible to any one of sound mind and yet be art, there... LEO NIKOLAEVICH TOLSTOY Unlike with any other art form, filmmakers have this unique web of festivals. There are hundreds. It... JASON REITMAN Art is a form of communication that these kids need, especially in the modern world. I want people i... GAIL EDMONDS My motivation for being a good drummer was born out of fear, which, in a way, seems so antithetical ... DAMIEN CHAZELLE All of the paintings in the Museum Art Online collection are known to have a status of world-wide fa... ALAN COOK When you put the subjectivity of the art together with the context of the science, you have this ver... JAMES BALOG When people begin to define the things that they believe in, based upon the exclusion of all the thi... C. JOYBELL C. To me the purpose of art is to produce something alive...but with a separate, and of course one hope... HENRY GREEN You can look at some great art, purchase some great art, and have a good time visiting your neighbor... DAN CREWS There's good art and there's bad art. A lot of action films are bad art, but Paul Greengrass... JOE WRIGHT But the very question of whether photography is or is not an art is essentially a misleading one. Al... SUSAN SONTAG Since art is considered a noble field, art should be used to promote all that is good and noble, and... E.A. BUCCHIANERI My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indi... CHINUA ACHEBE The purpose of the activity is to bring horsemen, horse lovers, lovers of art, and artists together ... JUDY THOMPSON The issue isn't whether he loved you, it's how much. Too much. Love can be poison SARAH J. MAAS I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belong to you. SARAH J. MAAS He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain... SARAH J. MAAS Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold ... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Hodor," said Hodor. GEORGE R.R. MARTIN You do what you love, what you need SARAH J. MAAS I turned. Rhysand leaned against the archway into the sitting room, arms crossed, wings nowhere... SARAH J. MAAS I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words ... JONATHAN SWIFT Why do we always begin to think about people when they die? I think we should think about people whi... C. JOYBELL C. We all have a life to live! We all have unique and distinctive purposes to fulfill! Everybody has a ... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH I'm from a very violent city. I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana, and it's good to see me b... JASON MITCHELL I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib... C. JOYBELL C. Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don'... DAMIEN HIRST Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. … It is a kind of tal... ANN PATCHETT I have little or no concern at how people interpret my writing, my only concern is to write it. ROBERT BLACK These pieces relate to the sculptural work. Sculpture is a very physical art form for him and these ... MICHELE QUINN The slides are the way art history is taught. It's the way artists and art historians learn about ar... MATT DISTEL The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers. JAMES BALDWIN The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers. JAMES BALDWIN The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers. JAMES ARTHUR BALDWIN Be kind. We never know what people are going through. Give grace and mercy because one day your circ... GERMANY KENT Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best fe... LEO NIKOLAEVICH TOLSTOY Good art however immoral is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mea... EZRA POUND Unless you are a born connoisseur of art, you will not be able to judge by yourself why certain art ... DAVID ELLIOTT As an architect, you have to provide a shelter to enjoy art. And you have to love art. It's like... RENZO PIANO I think African art, primitive in a sense, influenced the contemporary and modern art from the begin... FORTUNA VALENTINO Art pieces for us are the most important thing, so everything around should be in harmony. We both l... FORTUNA VALENTINO A lot of people, especially Christians, want to put you in this box of being a Christian actor, and ... ZACHARY LEVI Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; ... ARISTOTLE There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sl... W.H. AUDEN I think of the friendships I've strained, the generosity I've exploited, the bridges I've torched. D... ANTHONY ERVIN The best way for you to get that new experience is to change your response to what happens. CHRIS PRENTISS Simplicity, clarity, singleness: These are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness an... RICHARD HOLLOWAY I was very enthusiastic about that. The Meier building was maybe not such a great place to show art.... HENRI LOYRETTE Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art a... ANDY WARHOL Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art...Making money is art and working is art ... ANDY WARHOL Artists and art institutions have to learn how to play hardball. A democratic society needs a democr... HANS HAACKE I like art with a sense of humor. I don't have a huge art education to understand everything. I ... KATHLEEN HANNA I think there's a lot of similarity between what people try to do with religion with what they w... BRIAN ENO You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wo... SETH GODIN There were some of our fans who really caught on in the early years and were really attached to that... ALEX BERAM It really pleases me that 'Maat' did so well, ... You don't see a lot of mixed media art like mine ... JULIE MITCHELL Good art however 'immoral' is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good... EZRA POUND I feel very strongly that we have zoning for a purpose. And when people request a zoning change, the... JOY GUYER Both art and science are ways to see more in what you're looking at. Good art and good science both ... LEE ANNE WILLSON To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as sayin... LEO TOLSTOY ...music is the perfect type of art. Music can never reveal its ultimate secret. This, also, is the ... OSCAR WILDE Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through yo... GERMANY KENT One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to f... MARILYN FRENCH Art is not a metonym for truth telling. All art is a form of a falsifying; otherwise why would anyon... KILROY J. OLDSTER
More Chinua Achebe
Many writers can't make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I... CHINUA ACHEBE A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself. CHINUA ACHEBE The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair. CHINUA ACHEBE When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we se... CHINUA ACHEBE What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnic... CHINUA ACHEBE One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised. CHINUA ACHEBE Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their inter... CHINUA ACHEBE I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the empe... CHINUA ACHEBE I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life... CHINUA ACHEBE Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when ... CHINUA ACHEBE The most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I ob... CHINUA ACHEBE Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself... CHINUA ACHEBE People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories. CHINUA ACHEBE Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. CHINUA ACHEBE Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with w... CHINUA ACHEBE While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity... CHINUA ACHEBE Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages... CHINUA ACHEBE Okonwko was well known throughout the nine villages and even
beyond. His fame rested on solid pers... CHINUA ACHEBE No man can deny that Chief the Honourable M.A. Nanga, M.P. was
the most approachable politician in ... CHINUA ACHEBE Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself... CHINUA ACHEBE People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about... CHINUA ACHEBE I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next do... CHINUA ACHEBE I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas ... CHINUA ACHEBE But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic id... CHINUA ACHEBE Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which ... CHINUA ACHEBE The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature th... CHINUA ACHEBE A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educ... CHINUA ACHEBE The people you see in Nigeria today have always lived as neighbors in the same space for as long as ... CHINUA ACHEBE The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this grea... CHINUA ACHEBE When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry b... CHINUA ACHEBE When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one ... CHINUA ACHEBE The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience. CHINUA ACHEBE In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a w... CHINUA ACHEBE Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These ... CHINUA ACHEBE I was a supporter of the desire, in my section of Nigeria, to leave the federation because it was tr... CHINUA ACHEBE The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at ... CHINUA ACHEBE When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated ... CHINUA ACHEBE It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair. CHINUA ACHEBE The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this grea... CHINUA ACHEBE What's important is that we recognize the falsehood of the notion that the Third World should be aba... CHINUA ACHEBE People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what i... CHINUA ACHEBE Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagi... CHINUA ACHEBE Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and sta... CHINUA ACHEBE They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have n... CHINUA ACHEBE People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories. CHINUA ACHEBE My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts; m... CHINUA ACHEBE People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them ... CHINUA ACHEBE Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fu... CHINUA ACHEBE If you don't like someone's story, write your own. CHINUA ACHEBE I've had trouble now and again in Nigeria because I have spoken up about the mistreatment of fac... CHINUA ACHEBE My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indi... CHINUA ACHEBE When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other la... CHINUA ACHEBE Nigeria has had a complicated colonial history. My work has examined that part of our story extensiv... CHINUA ACHEBE The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place. CHINUA ACHEBE There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me i... CHINUA ACHEBE An artist, in my understanding of the word, should side with the people against the Emperor that opp... CHINUA ACHEBE Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is g... CHINUA ACHEBE Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not d... CHINUA ACHEBE In such a regime, I say you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and ... CHINUA ACHEBE In such a regime, I say you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and ... CHINUA ACHEBE And so Mr. Brown came to be respected even by the clan, because he trod softly on its faith. CHINUA ACHEBE Ife onye metalu' ['what a man commits'] - a statement unclear and menacing in its very inconclusiven... CHINUA ACHEBE In the vocabulary of certain radical theorists contradictions are given the status of some deadly di... CHINUA ACHEBE ...she was sensitive enough and intelligent enough to understand, and her literary education could n... CHINUA ACHEBE It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is... CHINUA ACHEBE Charity … is the opium of the privileged; from the good citizen who habitually drops ten kobo from... CHINUA ACHEBE It is only the story...that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of ... CHINUA ACHEBE Procrastination is a lazy man's apology. CHINUA ACHEBE Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches! CHINUA ACHEBE Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the rig... CHINUA ACHEBE Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged. CHINUA ACHEBE At the most one could say that his chi or ... personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a prove... CHINUA ACHEBE If you don't like my story,write your own CHINUA ACHEBE Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the... CHINUA ACHEBE Then listen to me,' he said and cleared his throat. 'It's true that a child belongs to its father. B... CHINUA ACHEBE The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his... CHINUA ACHEBE Presidents do not go off on leave without telling the country. CHINUA ACHEBE The relationship with my people, the Nigerian people, is very good. My relationship with the rulers ... CHINUA ACHEBE I don't care about age very much. I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, a... CHINUA ACHEBE If you had been poor in your last life I would have asked you to be rich when you come again. But yo... CHINUA ACHEBE A snake was never called by its name at night, because it would hear. It was called a string. CHINUA ACHEBE I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door w... CHINUA ACHEBE I don't care about age very much. CHINUA ACHEBE Nigera is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be. CHINUA ACHEBE I'm a practised writer now. But when I began, I had no idea what this was going to be. I just kn... CHINUA ACHEBE A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food... CHINUA ACHEBE