Holly Black Quotes

Is art really the priesthood that demands the pure in heart who belong to it wholly?

If it is the mark of the artist to love art before everything, to renounce everything for its sake, to think all the sweet human things of life well lost if only he may attain something, do some good, great work - then I was never an artist.

I always think that art is a form of sacrifice.

… the time is come when a removal of the restrictions upon the importation of food cannot be successfully resisted. Should this be Sir Robert's own opinion, the Queen very much hopes that none of his colleagues will prevent him from doing what it is right to do.

When I read about Joyce, I realised that there was no eight-till-one in his life: it was 24 hours a day for him.

If there was a button that I could push that would agog my brain to the level that I felt first seeing 'Avatar' in its entirety and another one for food pellets, I would die of starvation.

As a writer who has collaborated on projects, you give your life over to that project.

The artistic life is a long, lovely suicide.

Before I was a parent I was struck by Rilke, who, as you know, didn't go to his daughter's wedding because he was writing a poem that day. That was the ideal for artistic behavior in 1950. That's the way I wanted to live.

Art is a vocation, as much as anything in this world. For the real artist, it is the most natural thing in the world, not as necessary as air and water, perhaps, but as food and water. But we really do lead almost a monastic life, you know; to follow it you very often have to give up something.

For the man of talent affects to call his transgressions of the laws of sense trivial and to count them nothing considerd with his devotion to his art.

Everyone I have ever known very well has been concerned that I would eventually starve. Probably I shall. It isn't important enough to me to be an obsession.

Make some sacrifice for your art and you will be repaid, but ask of art to sacrifice herself for you and a bitter disappointment may come to you.

All artists are self-sacrificing human beings, and to become an artist is nothing but to devote oneself to the subterranean gods.

The art is more important than the artist. The work is more important than the person who does it. You must be prepared to sacrifice all the you could possibly have, be, or do; you must be willing to go all the way for your art. If it is a question between choosing between your life and a work of art -- any work of art -- your decision is made for you.

Sometime in 1964 I realized that I was a victim of a printmaking obsession, a condition that persists today.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

When you're starving or wrapped up in a cycle of binge-ing-and-purging, or sexually obsessed with (someone), it is very hard to think about anything else, very hard to see the larger picture of options that is your life, very hard to consider what else you might need or want or fear were you not so intently focused on one crushing passion. I sat in my room every night, with rare exceptions, for three and a half years.

Art is a jealous mistress.

That so many writers have been prepared to accept a kind of martyrdom is the best tribute that flesh can pay to the living spirit of man as expressed in his literature. One cannot doubt that the martyrdom will continue to be gladly embraced. To some of us, the wresting of beauty out of language is the only thing in the world that matters.

Art, like love, excludes all competition and absorbs the man.

God told me if I painted that mountain enough, I could have it.

Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She's beautiful; when you're with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence; your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she's been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you.

Art is jealous, and demands our whole strength ... .

There was a price to be paid for being interested in fiction and in writing, pushing my family away. Books and authors became my family.