Quotes & Sayings About Paper Art

Writing, music, sculpting, painting, and prayer! These are the three things that are most closely related! Writers, musicians, sculptors, painters, and the faithful are the ones who make things out of nothing. Everybody else, they make things out of something, they have materials! But a written work can be done with nothing, it can begin in the soul! A musical piece begins with a harmony in the soul, a sculpture begins with a formless, useless piece of rock chiseled and formed and molded into the thing that was first conceived in the sculptor's heart! A painting can be carried inside the mind for a lifetime, before ever being put onto paper or canvass! And a prayer! A prayer is a thought, a remembrance, a whisper, a communion, that is from the soul going to what cannot be seen, yet it can move mountains! And so I believe that these five things are interrelated, these five kinds of people are kin. — C. JoyBell C.

Ceony made her way down the hall, peeking briefly into her room. The bed had been remade, and she smiled. Emery's odd knack for tidiness had him folding and tucking blanket corners as though crafting a spell, and while he had demonstrated to Ceony how to properly make a bed, she'd never taken the time to mimic the art. She often kept the door to her room closed just so Emery wouldn't be tempted to rearrange her things, but with her out of the house, there was nothing to stop him.
He must be bored.
She passed her room and stuck her head into the library, but the paper magician wasn't there. The table and telegraph had both been moved to the right of the window, however. Terribly bored, then. — Charlie N. Holmberg

Every time she meets him, she feels like he was a new paper ready to be drawn. And she could clearly remember how the first time she met him, he was like a sketch paper filled with grey and blue and black, all mixed up together forming a confusing storm, — Basma Salem

I carried with me into the West End Bar, the White Horse Tavern, a long list of things I would never do: I would never have my hair set in a beauty parlor. I would never move to a suburb and bake cakes or make casseroles. I would never go to a country club dance, although I did like the paper lanterns casting rainbow colors on the terrace. I would never invest in the stock market. I would never play canasta. I would never wear pearls. I would love like a nursling but I would never go near a man who had a portfolio or a set of golf clubs or a business or even a business suit. I would only love a wild thing. I didn't care if wild things tended to break hearts. I didn't care if they substituted scotch for breakfast cereal. I understood that wild things wrote suicide notes to the gods and were apt to show up three hours later than promised. I understood that art was long and life was short. — Anne Roiphe

The art of not playing in tempo
one has to learn it. And the art of not playing what is written on the printed paper. — Pablo Casals

We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadn't dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think we'll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear. — Curtis Sittenfeld

Art saved my life in two ways. It made me feel special, because I could do things my friends couldn't, but it also gave me a way to demonstrate to my teacher that, despite the fact that I couldn't write a paper or do math, I was paying attention. — Chuck Close

I can't believe you can create such beauty."
"I can't believe I'm finally looking at my beauty. You can't see it, Lark. I know you can't. Maybe it's a girl thing or your shitty family or you do see it and are just fishing for compliments, but you are too beautiful to get right on paper. No matter how much I try," I said, cupping her face, "I can't make my art look nearly as perfect as you."
"Shit," she whispered. "Did you just think that up because it was fucking brilliant?"
Before I could answer, little Lark stepped up as far as she could on her tippy toes, pulled me down to her, and kissed me hard and deep. The girl claimed my breath like she'd already claimed my heart. No way was I imagining all of her wonderful qualities. I wasn't that damn creative. — Bijou Hunter

Writers and painters have a medium that can foster self-effacements. Actors haven't. An actor can't hide himself behind paper or canvas. If you're not there your art's not there. That's why we actors are often such self-centered objects. — Elizabeth Goudge

The video camera dominates art. It's a bore, it makes everything look a bit the same. If you look at things with a pencil and paper in your hand, you are going to see far more. — David Hockney

It's gratifying to hear that from people who care about comic art. I never know what to make of it when someone writes to say, "Calvin and Hobbes is the best strip in the paper. I like it even more than Nancy." — Bill Watterson

Faced with a totally controlled, monitored and owned online world, in which every utterance is immediately scanned and filed away, many have yet to make the connection that the best solution may not be running Tor and eighteen proxies, but writing things down on paper and talking face-to-face. Remember the mail? Remember conversations? Yeah, those still exist. Want to shake somebody out of their online trance? Send them a letter. Send them art. Want to record something that will last longer than a few seconds on Facebook or Twitter? Write a book. The physical world didn't go anywhere. In fact, physical artifacts and experiences have only grown in totemic power the more we've pushed them away. — Jason Louv

Fifty grand for a paper bucket? Well it was all about context, you see. — Paul Christensen

And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: Look at this Godawful mess. — Art Buchwald

Here, I could see, was choice matter on which the expert and art critic could exercise their knowledge and judgment. As I had neither, I made an experiment or two, and was able to inform the readers of the paper that if you walked briskly past the picture, winking both eyes as fast as possible, you really got a sort of impression of movement and activity, of ships and boats coming into the harbour and sailing out of it, of sails lowered and hoisted, of an uncertain background, now obscured, now left visible as a ship in full sail passed before it. It struck me that, in my hands, art criticism was in a fair way to become a popular sport. — Arthur Machen

Commercial art is traditionally delivered to a client in a brown-paper bag with an invoice stapled to the outside. — Brad Holland

About 1998, when 'Wide World of Sports' and the 'Footy Show' came to an end for me, I couldn't type. When I started architecture, it was a very aesthetic, creative, an almost art process, where lettering and thick line were how you expressed yourself on the paper. — Max Walker

Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either; on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy. — John Adams

The lure in art collecting and its financial rewards, not counting for a moment its aesthetic, cultural and intellectual rewards, is like the trust in paper money: it makes no sense when you really think about it. New artistic images are so vulnerable to opinion that it wouldn't take much more than a whim for a small group of collectors to decide that a contemporary artist was not so wonderful anymore, was so last year. — Steve Martin

general supplies that you should always have on hand. Pencils, pens, markers, chalk, etc. Art supplies such as paint, glue, beads, etc. Paper, paper and more paper of all kinds. Self-care and cleaning supplies, such as hand soap and paper towels. Trays or baking sheets. These will be used to as portable workstations for each activity. Place mats, or another type of work mat. Small scoops, tongs and tweezers. Cups or muffin trays to be used for sorting activities or keeping supplies separate. — Sterling Production

I may not, perhaps, be forgiven for introducing sober matters with a frivolous notion, but the problem of making sense out of the seeming chaos of experience reminds me of my childish desire to send someone a parcel of water in the mail. The recipient unties the string, releasing the deluge in his lap. But the game would never work, since it is irritatingly impossible to wrap and tie a pound of water in a paper package. There are kinds of paper which won't disintegrate when wet, but the trouble is to get the water itself into any manageable shape, and to tie the string without bursting the bundle.

The more one studies attempted solutions to problems in politics and economics, in art, philosophy, and religion, the more one has the impression of extremely gifted people wearing out their ingenuity at the impossible and futile task of trying to get the water of life into neat and permanent packages. — Alan W. Watts

You can't rush art." I crumpled another lost attempt and tossed it behind me. "Besides, patience is a virtue."

"It's a virtue until it's a waste of time," he pointed out.

The cello unleashed a few notes that sounded strangely bright for such an instrument, and Hal nodded in its direction. "See; even a musical instrument agrees with me. — Mirriam Neal

A Zentangle Art Kit To make your own little art kit you will need: Zentangle squares cut from black and white paper A Micron 01 and 05 Pen A Sakura White Gel Pen A White Pencil A Soft Lead Pencil A Box to house all your treasures. All you have to do is gather your materials and put them in a box. You can decorate the box as you like. Maybe you would like to draw Zentangles all over it. I like to carry my kit in my purse and so a box is quite cumbersome. I use a small plastic pouch. It very easily houses all my Zentangle squares, pencils and pens. — Mahe Zehra Husain

Writing is a physical art. And writing a book is a lot more like making a complex sculpture out of bronze than writing a whole bunch of reports. What's in your head does not count, not for sculpture, not for book writing. Pencil on paper is what matters. Words on paper, pages and pages, chapter after chapter. — Heather Sellers

An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great power and art in small things roughly and rudely done, than many another in a great work. A man may often draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day ... and it shall be fuller of art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole year's careful labor. — Albrecht Durer

When the design was finally locked in, Jobs called the Macintosh team together for a ceremony. "Real artists sign their work," he said. So he got out a sheet of drafting paper and a Sharpie pen and had all of them sign their names. The signatures were engraved inside each Macintosh. No one would ever see them, but the members of the team knew that their signatures were inside, just as they knew that the circuit board was laid out as elegantly as possible. Jobs called them each up by name, one at a time. Burrell Smith went first. Jobs waited until last, after all forty-five of the others. He found a place right in the center of the sheet and signed his name in lowercase letters with a grand flair. Then he toasted them with champagne. "With moments like this, he got us seeing our work as art," said Atkinson. — Walter Isaacson

There's something magical about the experience of taking a blank sheet of paper and being able to make it take flight with just a few careful, strategic folds. The art of paper plane making has been used for generations, not just to prototype big ideas and lofty innovations - without the humble paper plane, there might have been no Wright brothers' first flight - but also to teach children about engineering, physics, possibility and small miracles. With one or two simple folds, a child learns that her actions can affect her results and that the way she builds something matters. — Bernadette Jiwa

Professor Severus Snape: There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few ...
[stares at Draco Malfoy]
Professor Severus Snape: Who possess, the predisposition ... I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.
[notices Harry scribbling on his paper]
Professor Severus Snape: Then again, maybe some of you have come to Hogwarts in possession of abilities so formidable that you feel confident enough to not pay attention!
[steps over to Harry]
Professor Severus Snape: Mister Potter. Our new celebrity. — J.K. Rowling

Art is not delivered like the morning paper; it has to be stolen from Mount Olympus. — Wayne Thiebaud

It was an irresistible development of modern illustration (so largely photographic) that borders should be abandoned and the "picture" end only with the paper. This method may be suitable for for photographs; but it is altogether inappropriate for the pictures that illustrate or are inspired by fairy-stories. An enchanted forest requires a margin, even an elaborate border. To print it coterminous with the page, like a "shot" of the Rockies in Picture Post, as if it were indeed a "snap" of fairyland or a "sketch by our artist on the spot", is a folly and an abuse. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in sketching fancy vignettes representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rock; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disc; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn bloom. — Charlotte Bronte

DESDEMONA: I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.
OTHELLO: Oh, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles,
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born!
DESDEMONA: Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?
OTHELLO: Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Made to write "whore" upon? — William Shakespeare

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

All art is but dirtying the paper delicately. — John Ruskin

Most of the time he [Marlon Brando] sounds like he has a mouth full of toilet paper. — Rex Reed

We always describe a piece as 'really lively' where it seems the work dances off the paper or the silk. Art has to hit you on an emotional level rather than just the analytical. — Jerry Yang

I knew that I wanted to be an illustrator since I was in kindergarten. I can remember the exact day. The art teacher usually came to our classroom once a week, but she was absent that day. Instead, our regular teacher gave us each a huge piece of paper and crayons, and we could do whatever we wanted. — Jan Brett

A shit show is chaos as religion, because "God is dead." A shit show all by itself is usually a crime. A shit show when put on paper or to music, is no longer whirling, twirling chaos. Then it's art. We can take it on the road, and we can travel with it. Have shit show, will travel. — Fiona Helmsley

The painter puts brush to canvas, and the poet puts pen to paper. The poet has the easier task, for his pen does not alter his rhyme. — Robert Breault

One of the wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is that, white is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. — G.K. Chesterton

Look at a skilled blacksmith working steel. To the untrained eye, he's merely repeating the same hammer blows, but anyone trained in the art of calligraphy knows that each time the blacksmith lifts the hammer and brings it down, the intensity of the blow is different.
The hand repeats the same gesture, but as it approaches the metal it understands that it must touch it with more or less force. It's the same thing with repetition: it may seem the same, but it's always different. The moment will come when you no longer think about what you're doing. You become the letter, the ink, the paper, the word. — Paulo Coelho

Literary art's sudden, startling truth and beauty make us feel, in the most solitary part of us, that we are not alone, and that there are meanings that cannot be bought, sold or traded, that do not decay and die. This socially and economically worthless experience is called transcendence, and you cannot assign a paper, or a grade, or an academic rank, on that. Literature is too sacred to be taught. It needs only to be read. — Lee Siegel

Poetry is the art which is technically within the grasp of everyone: a piece of paper and a pencil and one is ready. — Eugenio Montale

I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth. — Jane Austen

In her dance, she controlled the bright paper birds with invisible wires and threads. She played the human: heavy, tied to earth. Her dances weren't pretty or delightful, but they were magical, [ ... ] They called her a dancer and a puppeteer and an artist. They might have called her a witch, and not the good kind either. — Katherine Catmull

Every other artist begins with a blank canvas, a piece of paper the photographer begins with the finished product. — Edward Steichen

It just feels like meeting him again was like seeing a blank paper ready to be sketched, a different idea to be drawn. — Basma Salem

The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper, ... in the poet's life. It is what hehas become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince's gallery. — Henry David Thoreau

She saw, yet again, that her friend's compliments were just bits of art and artifice. They were paper swans, cunningly folded so that they could float on the air for a few moments. Nothing more. — Marie Rutkoski

Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train. — Thomas Merton

How can you worry about pleasing people [critics] and what they're going to think? How can you do anything creative if the whole thing is motivated by trying to please somebody else? To me, the whole idea of what I thought art, or music, or anything creative was about pleasing yourself and hoping that whatever you're creating will reach someone else who'll see it on that level. To worry about someone picking it apart and discussing it element for element, and trying to knock you down or weaken it in any way doesn't amount to anything but a waste of paper. — Elliot Easton

I decided honestly that comic art is an art form in itself. It reflects the life and times more accurately and actually is more artistic than magazine illustration - since it is entirely creative. An illustrator works with camera and models; a comic artist begins with a white sheet of paper and dreams up his own business - he is playwright, director, editor and artist at once. — Alex Raymond

Come on let's see the degree."
Katherine unrolled her scroll displaying a long declaration in Latin affixed with a red seal proclaiming her a Master of Art.
"Imagine working for years to obtain a piece of paper we can hardly read " Katherine joked.
"And to officially declare you have talent " Suzy returned. — E.A. Bucchianeri

The little boy went first day of school He got some crayons and started to draw He put colors all over the paper For colors was what he saw And the teacher said.. "What you doin' young man?" "I'm paintin' flowers" he said She said ... "It's not the time for art young man And anyway flowers are green and red There's a time for everything young man And a way it should be done You've got to show concern for everyone else For you're not the only one. — Harry Chapin

I do not possess the ability to draw or paint.
I can't sing or dance.
I can't knit or sew.
But I am an artist.
I have the ability to put onto paper, words that tell an intriguing story.
I am a writer.
A writer is someone who, with just words, can paint a beautiful picture.
A writer can open up a world of imagination you didn't realize was possible.
When you open up a book and become so consumed in the story, you feel like you're a part of it ... you're standing next to that character and feeling the same way that character feels,
That's the art of a writer.
I am an artist.
My inspiration is the world around me.
My paintbrush is my words.
My easel is my computer.
My canvas is the mind of my reader. — Bri Justine

Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper. — Jean Cocteau

I am certainly not regenerating French art, but am struggling hard to accomplish something on an unlucky piece of paper which has done me no harm at all, and on which, believe me, I am doing nothing that is good ... I hope things will improve eventually; as it is, I am pretty wretched. — Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec

The division between art and deviousness and crime is sometimes as thin as a cigarette paper. — Robertson Davies

Until film is just as easily accessible as a pen or pencil, then it's not completely an art form. In painting you can just pick up a piece of chalk, a stick or whatever. In sculpture you can get a rock. Writing you just need a pencil and paper. — Forest Whitaker

An important document of the paper of record at a crucial, make-or-break juncture in its long, glorious history, and a love letter to the dying art form that is the great American newspaper. — Nathan Rabin

How can you put out a meaningful drama when every fifteen minutes proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper? No dramatic art form should be dictated and controlled by men whose training and instincts are cut of an entirely different cloth. The fact remains that these gentlemen sell consumer goods, not an art form. — Rod Serling

Smart art galleries know it's not the words on paper but the emotion in the piece that makes clients pull out the credit card or check book. The gallery's number one concern is will this stuff sell? What your bio, artist's statement or resume articulates will be of no help if you don't make art that connects with buyers. — Jack White

Outline of your frame
My paper witness your silhouette
Sipping in coffee
My muse, my Juliet.

Afternoon spent,
In hungry desires
Ending with a kiss
On your coffee lips. — Saiber

We attempted perfection; we wanted an object to be without flaw, so we cut the papers with a razor, pasted them down meticulously, but it buckled and was ruined ... that is why we decided to tear prewrinkled paper, so that in the finished work of art imperfection would be an integral part, as if at birth death were built in. — Hans Arp

Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something; my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work. — Michel De Montaigne

The writer doesn't need economic freedom. All he needs is a pencil and some paper. I've never known anything good in writing to come from having accepted any free gift of money. The good writer never applies to a foundation. He's too busy writing something. If he isn't first rate he fools himself by saying he hasn't got time or economic freedom. Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. — William Faulkner

A Poster Is a Poster and Not a Pipe
A poster has a message. Sometimes. A poster is a sheet of paper without a backside. A poster is a stamp. You can put it on the wall or on the window, on the celing or on the ground, upside down or wrong side up. There are young posters that look very old and old posters that never die. A good poster attacks you. A bad poster loves you. And there are "l'art-pour-l'art" posters that love themselves and want to be beautiful. These type of posters confuse the viewer, muddle up his eyes, and force him to look for something in the poster that is not inside. If you like, you can smoke it in your pipe. — Uwe Loesch

Great writers are indecent people they live unfairly saving the best part for paper. good human beings save the world so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal. if you read this after I am dead it means I made it. — Charles Bukowski

I choose depending on the way I feel; randomly, in other words. When I haven't done anything for a long time, I always start small, on paper. — Gerhard Richter

Create a guidebook of creative dreams
You can use a blank book or just blank paper clipped together. Put photographs or scraps from magazines in that represent your creative dreams. Draw, scribble, or paint in between the images. Make a list of creative dreams you've thought of or admire in others. — SARK

A drawing is a translation. That is to say each mark on the paper is consciously realted, not only to the real or imagined "model", but also to every mark and space already set out on the paper. Thus a drawn or painted image is woven together by the energy (or the lassitude, wen the drawing is weak) of countless judgements [sic]. Every time a figuration is evoked in a drawing, everything about it has been mediated by consciousness, either intuitively or systematically. — John Berger

I've always been a quitter. I quit the Boy Scouts, the glee club, the marching band. Gave up my paper route, turned my back on the church, stuffed the basketball team. I dropped out of college, sidestepped the army with a 4-F on the grounds of mental instability, went back to school, made a go of it, entered a Ph.D. program in nineteenth-century British literature, sat in the front row, took notes assiduously, bought a pair of horn-rims, and quit on the eve of my comprehensive exams. I got married, separated, divorced. Quit smoking, quit jogging, quit eating red meat. I quit jobs: digging graves, pumping gas, selling insurance, showing pornographic films in an art theater in Boston. When I was nineteen I made frantic love to a pinch-faced, sack-bosomed girl I'd known from high school. She got pregnant. I quit town. — T.C. Boyle

Don't be afraid to put anything on paper because the best art has some element of danger to it and if you hold back then people will kind of be able to tell that you're trying to be something you're not. — Max Bemis

What moves me about ... what's called technique ... is that it comes from some mysterious deep place. I mean it can have something to do with the paper and the developer and all that stuff, but it comes mostly from some very deep choices somebody has made that take a long time and keep haunting them. — Diane Arbus

I recognized the great monument from the illustration in the copy of /The Jungle Book/ that my mother kept in the top drawer of my bedside table. When I went with Sophia to the Taj Mahal for the first time, I was not as enchanted by the real mausoleum as I had been by its plaster, paint, and paper replica in the studio; the original posed a dreadfully seductive promise in cool marble of a strangely painful loveliness, a lover's lie that death itself might in some mysterious way, because of love, be lovely. — Lee Siegel

When everything that is called art was well and truly riddled with rheumatism, the photographer lit the thousands of candles whose power is contained in his flame, and the sensitive paper absorbed by degrees the blackness cut out of some ordinary object. He had invented a fresh and tender flash of lightning. — Tristan Tzara

Some photographers could vomit on a piece of paper and call it art, you know ... Hang it in the Guggenheim, or whatever. Sell a print for two hundred pounds? But I can't do that. I just
Maybe I have too much respect for walls ... or something. — Pansy Schneider-Horst

Maybe stalking the woods is as vital to the human condition as playing music or putting words to paper. Maybe hunting has as much of a claim on our civilized selves as anything else. After all, the earliest forms of representational art reflect hunters and prey. While the arts were making us spiritually viable, hunting did the heavy lifting of not only keeping us alive, but inspiring us. To abhor hunting is to hate the place from which you came, which is akin to hating yourself in some distant, abstract way. — Steven Rinella

I taught myself how to draw, and I soon found out it was what I really wanted to do. I didn't think I was going to create any great masterpieces like Rembrandt or Gauguin. I thought comics was a common form of art, and strictly American in my estimation, because America was the home of the common man - and show me the common man that can't do a comic. So comics is an American form of art that anyone can do with a pencil and paper. — Jack Kirby

Photography is essentially an act of recognition by street photographers, not an act of invention. Photographers might respond to an old man's face, or an Arbus freak, or the way light hits a building - and then they move on. Whereas in all the other art forms, take William Blake, everything that came to that paper never existed before. It's the idea of alchemy, of making something from nothing. — Duane Michals

It is not just bookstores and libraries that are disappearing but museums, theaters, performing arts centers, art and music schools - all those places where I felt at home have joined the list of endangered species. The San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and my own hometown paper, The Washington Post, have all closed their weekend book review sections, leaving books orphaned and stranded, poor cousins to television and the movies. In a sign of the times, the Bloomberg News website recently transferred its book coverage to the Luxury section, alongside yachts, sports clubs and wine, as if to signal that books are an idle indulgence of the super-rich. But if there is one thing that should not be denied to anyone rich or poor it is the opportunity to dream. — Azar Nafisi

And she could clearly remember how the first time she met him, he was like a sketch paper filled with grey and blue and black, all mixed up together forming a confusing storm, the second time she met him was like red and orange and everything that burned, the third time it was raining and it felt like the storm would never end.
And she felt right now that the storm is ending. When he took his glasses off and she saw the sadness in his eyes, and she could clearly see how the storm is going to leave soon, but yet leaving behind it broken pieces and shattered glasses. — Basma Salem

Who Am I?
I'm a creator, a visionary, a poet. I approach the world with the eyes of an artist, the ears of a musician, and the soul of a writer. I see rainbows where others see only rain, and possibilities when others see only problems. I love spring flowers, summer's heat on my body, and the beauty of the dying leaves in the fall. Classical music, art museums, and ballet are sources of inspiration, as well as blues music and dim cafes. I love to write; words flow easily from my fingertips, and my heart beats rapidly with excitement as an idea becomes a reality on the paper in front of me. I smile often, laugh easily, and I weep at pain and cruelty. I'm a learner and a seeker of knowledge, and I try to take my readers along on my journey. I am passionate about what I do. I learned to dream through reading, learned to create dreams through writing, and learned to develop dreamers through teaching. I shall always be a dreamer. Come dream with me. — Sharon M. Draper

I remembered the taste of good Italian coffee in my London flat, brewed at the expense of time and a good deal of mess, compared to the sort that came out of machines in the office at the press of a button. I remembered walking to art school, through the windy winter, over hills and heaths: how much gladder I was to reach the rich warmth and to toast my hands on a radiator, than if I had gone by car. I remembered the nickels my father gave me as a child for being good: how much more I valued them than I would a dollar bill given all at once for no reason. Of course God as the ultimate parent could give happiness for the asking, just as my father could have given a handful of dollar bills, but at the age of five would I have known its value, or would it have looked to me just like a wad of grubby green paper? — Sumangali Morhall

There is but one art, to omit! Oh, if I knew how to omit I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knows how to omit would make an Iliad of a daily paper. — Robert Louis Stevenson

My daughter loves to do art stuff. As a father, I like to play with her. We break out the big pads of paper and the glitter and all the stuff. She likes to do what she likes to do. I want to do something, too. So I've just started using her same materials - a lot of crayons, a lot of sparkle, charcoal, pencils, markers and glue. — Stone Gossard

Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle taught us that money should be durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, and value in itself. It should be durable, which is why wheat isn't money; divisible which is why works of art are not money; consistent which is why real estate isn't money; convenient, which is why lead isn't money; value in itself, which is why paper shouldn't be money. Gold answers to all these criteria. — Doug Casey

I decided to start anew-to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking. This was one of the best times of my life. There was no one around to look at what I was doing, no one interested, no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working into my own, unknown-no one to satisfy but myself. I began with charcoal and paper and decided not to use any color until it was impossible to do what I wanted to do in black and white. I believe it was June before I needed blue. — Georgia O'Keeffe

With the art therapy, as soon as they saw the paper and crayons coming, we couldn't get it out fast enough. And we told them to draw about the tsunami. — Connie Sellecca

Art is borne out of necessity. Music is a tool and men are doers. When a relationship is working, you don't need to write a song-you need to get toilet paper. — Sxip Shirey

I cared nothing; my point of view in that instance, as in all others like it, was, that if the paper chose to send an outsider and an ignoramus to criticise works of art - especially the works of a new and tentative and experimental school - then, on the head of the paper let the just doom fall. — Arthur Machen

Writing - like any art - is so damned personal that there really isn't a right way to do it. You do what works for you; what matters is getting the words on the paper. Sure, if you hear advice, and it works, then excellent. But, if it doesn't, you have to realize that perhaps nothing is wrong with you. You don't jive with the advice. — Mur Lafferty

She wanted to explain everything to him - how certain notes of the Moonlight Sonata shredded her heart like wind inside a paper bag; how her soul felt as endless and deep as the sea churning on their left; how the sight of the young Muslim couple filled her with an emotion that was equal parts joy and sadness; and above all, how she wanted a marriage that was different from the dead sea of marriages she saw all around her, how she wanted something finer, deeper, a marriage made out of silk and velvet instead of coarse cloth, a marriage made of clouds and stardust and red earth and ocean foam and moonlight and sonatas and books and art galleries and passion and kindness and sorrow and ecstasy and of fingers touching from under a burqua. — Thrity Umrigar

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. [ ... ] The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Writing is the process of making my soul tangible on paper. — Me

I had Paterson, and The Art Lover, to guide me for The Tales of Horror (written from 1988-'97 and published in 1999), but I still was so lost, back then, as I tried to understand what I was writing and how it went together. There was a draft of that manuscript that had all these brightly colored paper clips on the pages so I could visualize what I saw as the book's themes and threads - that was a long time ago. — Laura Mullen

"If you are loyal you are successful," ruminated the company paper at one time. "All useful work is raised to the plane of art when love for the task-loyalty-is fused with the effort. Loyalty is the great lubricant of life. It saves the wear and tear of making daily decisions as to what is best to do. The man who is loyal to his work is not wrung nor perplexed by doubts, he sticks to the ship, and if the ship founders he goes down like a hero with colors flying at the masthead and the band playing." — Thomas Watson

Because watercolor actually moves on the paper, it is the most active of all mediums, almost a performance art. — Nita Engle

Art class was like a religious ceremony to me. I would wash my hands carefully before touching paper or pencils. The instruments of work were sacred objects to me. — Joan Miro

It was her first book, an indigo cover with a silver moonflower, an art nouveau flower, I traced my finger along the silver line like smoke, whiplash curves ... I touched the pages her hands touched, I pressed them to my lips, the soft thick old paper, yellow now, fragile as skin. I stuck my nose between the bindings and smelled all the readings she had given, the smell of unfiltered cigarettes and the espresso machine, beaches and incense and whispered words in the night. I could hear her voice rising from the pages. The cover curled outward like sails. — Janet Fitch