“It might be said of Miss [Djuna] Barnes, [T.S. Eliot] wrote, who is incontestably one of the most original writers of our time, that never has so much genius been combined with so little talent.”

“As George Russell defined a literary movement: Five or six men who live in the same town and hate each other.”

“Gertrudes remedy for her mood swings was to print up hundreds of black-bordered calling cards embossed with the single word Woe, which she handed out gaily declaring, Woe is me.”

“[I]t was [Barnett] Newman who made the famously wry remark, Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds,”

“It might be said of Miss [Djuna] Barnes,” [T.S. Eliot] wrote, “who is incontestably one of the most original writers of our time, that never has so much genius been combined with so little talent.”

“There is only one thing left for you to do,” John Sloan advised one artist. “Pull off your socks and try with your feet.”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“The best incentive for an artist are the harshest criticism”

“I have no idea how to be an artist and a lover, so I chose the one most likely to make me happy when I'm eighty and gazing back on a long and productive life.”

“Artists strive to free this true and spontaneous self in their work. Creativity, meditation are ways of freeing an inner voice.”

“The pleasure of criticizing takes away from us the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.”

“But instead of spending our lives running towards our dreams, we are often running away from a fear of failure or a fear of criticism.”

“The ugliest government is the one which is spreading fear to its own people! The finest government is the one which encourages its own people to criticize the government harshly.”