Artistic Communication Quotes

The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.

Writing is both mask and unveiling.

Music begins where words leave off. Music expresses the inexpressible. If there is a Kingdom of Heaven, it lies in music.

Me releasing my music, if anything, is an opportunity to show the world my stories and tell the world my stories.

Writing [is] a form of prayer.

I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate these basic human emotions.

I get even more nervous singing when everyone's fallen silent, but I really try to communicate the meaning of the lyrics, and there's people there listening to that, and if they're moved by it, then I'm moved as well.

Intellectuals say simple things in difficult ways. Artists say difficult things in simple ways.

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall.

I don't believe that you can possibly separate expression from thought in an imaginative work. The better a thing is expressed, the more completely it is thought.

It's hard to make music knowing that it's not going to be received by the listener in the way that it should be.

Art has to be a kind of confession. I don't mean a true confession in the sense of that dreary magazine. The effort it seems to me, is: if you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover them, too - the terms with which they are connected to other people.

Even though Prince wasn't rapping and it was a whole different era, it shows how artists expressed themselves without saying too much, and that was the real beauty of the art.

An artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way

My weapon is literature

writing is the most personal form of prayer.

Writing is a concentrated form of thinking...a young writer sees that with words he can place himself more clearly into the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions.

It is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine at least.

I start out making my paintings for me. I don't see it as a form of communication. Until, of course, after they are done and I want people to see them. And want them to be recognized. But while I am making them I just try to get lost in them. Kind of like it's a prayer.

The most beautiful thing about music is that it transcends most anything.

While drawing, I discover what I really want to say.

Musicians are like a preacher, a teacher, an actor. You are the mediator who can transfer the energy of beautiful music to the others.

Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially impressive partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech, and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances of excitement.

A conductor has to know how to translate music into a communicative force that makes the listener want to hear what he has to say.

The role of the musician is to go from concept to full execution. Put another way, it's to go from understanding the content of something to really learning how to communicate it and make sure it's well-received and lives in somebody else.