Harry Callahan Quotes

A picture is like a prayer.

The making of art is no different than prayer.

The key to being a wonderful writer is not to write. You just get out of the way. Leave room for God to walk in the room. And when I write something that I know is right, I get on my knees and say 'thank you.'

Art is man's nature; nature is God's art.

I'm a believer. I don't go to church. I don't belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn't write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief.

God knows why - no pun intended - but every time I write a song, I feel a need to touch on religion.

I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.

Sincere composers believe in God.

I have always felt that art, especially music, is but a demonstration of God.

When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God.

The music that I have learned and want to give is like worshipping God. It's absolutely like a prayer.

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.

In my 20s, as I began to travel in Europe, I found comfort in religious paintings. Even though my own belief in Catholic dogma had been shaken and weakened, I found that the beauty and the richness of the art still held me.

An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God.

I think there's a lot of similarity between what people try to do with religion with what they want from art. In fact, I very specifically think that they are same thing. Not that religion and art are the same, but that they both tap into the same need we have for surrender.

Art is kind of the lens through which I think about God.

The modern notion of art is an essentially religious or magical one in which the artist is viewed as a holy beast who in some way, big or small, receives flashes from the godhead, which is known as creativity.

People have talents that are different. Where does the creative flow come from - inside us or from a higher power? I don't ask any questions. I just write it down.

I stay away from the arts... writing songs, being creative - those are downloads from God. You can't do data analytics on art.

Definitely being spiritual helps me create good music because music is ultimately the sound of the god.

My music is religion, and my religion is music. They are one.

When I was recording 'Kun-Faaya-Kun,' I did it like I was offering Namaaz.

Writing is like meditation or going into an ESP trance, or prayer. Like dreaming. You are tapping into your unconscious. To be fully conscious and alert, with life banging and popping and cuckooing all around, you are not going to find your way to your subconscious, which is a place of complete submission.

Never was I so devout as when I composed The Creation. I knelt down each day to pray to God to give me strength for my work....When I was working on The Creation I felt so impregnated with Divine certainty, that before sitting down to the piano, I would quietly and confidently pray to God to grant me the talent that was needed to praise Him worthily.

When photographers get beyond copying the achievements of others, or just repeating their own accidental first successes, they learn that they do not know where in the world they will find pictures. Nobody does. Each photograph that works is a revelation to its supposed creator.