Alice McDermott Quotes

Art is truth.

The affairs of music ought, somehow, to terminate in the love of the beautiful.

The appreciation of the merits of art (of the emotions it conveys) depends upon an understanding of the meaning of life...

The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition-and therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain.

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.

Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts - as the one which, more than any other, ministers to the human spirit.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Look at any inspired painting. It's like a gong sounding; it puts you in a state of reverberation.

Art is inspiring. Walking into a gallery, or when the lights go up on a stage; that thrill of getting something that has nothing to do with acquisition.

I believe that what we call beautiful is generally a by-product.

Life has to have the plenitude of art.

I try to figure out - intellectually, philosophically, psychologically - what the experience of beauty is.

I just love pretty things, whether it is art, a song or a pair of shoes.

Music, art, theater. I'm just a big fan of beauty.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Art must take reality by surprise.

I think I was always obsessed with esthetics.

The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don't have the resonance of an encyclical from the Pope stating an eternal truth, but they partake of the quality of eternity. There is a sort of timeless delight in them.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

A music serves truth up to you in a really interesting way that allows you to luxuriate in its beauty and, at the same time, to hopefully see yourself in its fragility.

‎There's no way to cheat a sensualist like me, somebody who can die laughing for hours over the pattern of the carpet in a hotel lobby.

A world without poetry and art would be too much like one without birds or flowers: bearable but a lot less enjoyable.

I look around the world and see so many wonderful things that I love and enjoy and benefit from, whether it's art or music or clothing or food and all the rest. And I'd like to add a little to that goodness.

Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world.