The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.

                                                                    – Bruce Lee

 

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development,

invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
                                                                                – Edgar Allen Poe

I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos.

A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm.

I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

                                                                                                         – Saul Bellow

 

From a recent article in the NY TIMES by physicist Carlo Rovelli:

"I think that this is also how the best art works. Science and art are both concerned with the continual reorganization of our conceptual space, of what we call meaning. What happens when we react to a work of art is not happening in the art object itself, of course — still less in some unphysical “world of the spirit.” It lies in the complexity of our brain, in the kaleidoscopic network of analogical relationships with which our neurons weave what we call meaning.
We are involved, engaged — for this takes us out of our habitual sleepwalking, reconnecting us with the joy of seeing something anew in the world."

"I swear to you, there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell."

                                                                                                                                – Walt Whitman

I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe… I wouldn't be surprised if poetry…in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes and designs…is how the world works. The world isn't logical, it's a song.

                                                                                                            – David Byrne

 

I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing…the emotional reaction is all that matters, as long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.

                                                                                                                                – John Coltrane

 

This day will never come again

and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it

will never have it offered to him again in all eternity.

The sun will never shine as it does today…

You must play your part and sing a song, one of your best.

                                                                                                                      – Hermann Hesse

 

"Ah, but we want so much more…

We do not want merely to see beauty,

though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.

We want something else which can hardly be put into words…

to be united with the beauty we see,

to pass into it,

to receive it into ourselves,

to bathe in it,

to become part of it."

                – C.S. Lewis

 

                                                                                                                                                                        

"I think that an artist teaches you, somebody put it to me, will lead you back to reality again.

Can make you see, as though for the first time, something you've been seeing all your life.

And in that sense, you know, an artist is very, very powerful."

                                                                                                               –James Baldwin