O.Wilde, Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. (...)
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. (...)

No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. (...)
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself...


O. Wilde (1854-1900),
Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'


Monday, August 29, 2011

Flannery O'Connor, quotations





Mary Flannery O'Connor                   



1925 - 1964


American novelist, short-story writer
and essayist. 





‘The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode’

‘The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it’

‘I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best’.

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial’

‘The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location’

‘The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention’

‘To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness’

‘Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay’
 

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