Aphorisms Galore!

Art and Literature

44 aphorisms  ·  14 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/hp6j7tok  ·  submitted 1997

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

Igor Stravinsky, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/g8ncpo30  ·  submitted 1997

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody has read.

Mark Twain, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/nqpwl3vp  ·  submitted 1997

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

Mark Twain, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/zlwhlbfu  ·  submitted 1997

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

Mark Twain, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/okkjfcye  ·  submitted 1997

Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.

Mark Twain, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/9dyyuj3l  ·  submitted 1997

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.

Paul Valéry, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/hcrgr6oa  ·  submitted 1997

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.

Voltaire, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/i7sepbck  ·  submitted 1998

The writer, making every effort to appear innocent and noble, takes his revenge with the pen; while the murderer, less hypocrtical, takes it with the sword.

Christopher Spranger, The Effort to Fall, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/fnp4k5bh  ·  submitted 1997

There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.

George Bernard Shaw, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/fyjdrmtu  ·  submitted 1997

I choose a block of marble and chop off everything I don't need.

François-Auguste Rodin, (on how he created his statues), in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/8dgit6e3  ·  submitted 1997

Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

Joseph Conrad, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/nsr67v4t  ·  submitted 1997

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

Gilbert K. Chesterton, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/2drhezti  ·  submitted 1997

If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.

Anton Chekhov, (advice to a novice playwright), in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/1ucvbvaf  ·  submitted 1997

No sane man will dance.

Cicero, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/i0nu42ok  ·  submitted 1997

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.

Tom Clancy, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/n6fwvz07  ·  submitted 1997

Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.

Flannery O'Connor, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/o5xbszuz  ·  submitted 1997

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

Flannery O'Connor, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/p6bwfqfr  ·  submitted 1997

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

P. J. O'Rourke, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/xrmys3sk  ·  submitted 1997

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

Luciano Pavarotti, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/1kb8kpsn  ·  submitted 1997

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after one grows up.

Pablo Picasso, in Art and Literature