Long looking at paintings is equivalent to being dropped into a foreign city, where gradually, out of desire and despair, a few key words, then a little syntax make a clearing in the silence. Art... is a foreign city, and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar... We have to recognize that the language of art, all art, is not our mother-tongue.

Asla yalan söylemeyin. İçinizde hiçbir şey kıpırdamadıysa bir şeyin sizi etkilediğini asla söylemeyin. Siz bir kitabı elinize alabilirsiniz ama bir kitap sizi odanın öbür ucuna fırlatabilir. Bir kitap sizi rahat koltuğunuzdan alıp deniz kenarındaki kayalıklara taşıyabilir. Bir kitap sizi kocanızdan, karınızdan, çocuklarınızdan, bütün benliğinizden ayırabilir. Ömür boyu çektiğiniz bir acıyı dindirebilir. Kitaplar kinetiktir ve her devasa güç gibi, onu elinizde tutarken dikkatli olmanız gerekir.

Often when she liked a picture she found that she was liking some part of herself, some part of her that was in accord with the picture

There is a sense of the human spirit as always existing. This makes our own death bearable.

...to create was a fundament, to appreciate, a supplement. Once created, the creature was separate from the creator, and needed no seconding to fully exist.

Art is enchantment and artists have the right of spells. ... The success of later Shakespeare is the success of spells, where every element, however uneven, however incredible, is fastened to the next with perfect authority. The enchanted world shimmers but does not waver. A Midsummer Night's Dream is the first of his plays to accomplish this, The Tempest is enchantment's apotheosis.

The riskiness of Art, the reason why it affects us, is not the riskiness of its subject matter, it is the risk of creating a new way of seeing, a new way of thinking.

It is the duty of every generation of writers and artists to find fresh ways of expressing the habitual circumstances of the human condition. To serve up the lukewarm remains of yesterdays dinner is easy, profitable and popular, (for a while). It is also wrong.

Creative work bridges time because the energy of art is not time-bound. If it were we should have no interest in the art of the past, except as history or documentary. But our interest in art is our interest in ourselves both now and always. Here and forever. There is a sense of the human spirit as always existing. This makes our death bearable. Life + art is a boisterous communion/communication with the dead. It is a boxing match with time.