Henry Moore Quotes

Even the greatest poets, I think, cannot quite get to the places that music can get to in the human - I was gonna say mind, but it's actually the entire body. It somehow seems to infuse the entire body.

Poems are a hotline to our hearts, and we forget this emotional power at our peril

I think you can't really reach the emotionally intense stuff without having built a genuine light, playful, connected energy, to begin with.

Genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies and animates.

Art is a self-replicating force.

If there is any reason to single out artists as being more necessary to our lives than any others, it is because they provide us with light that cannot be extinguished. They go into dark rooms and poke at their souls until the contours of our own are familiar to us.

To awaken human emotion is the highest level of art.

The real actor - like any real artistj- has a direct line to the collective heart.

A work of art doesn't have to be explained.

Art can compel people freely, gladly, and spontaneously to sacrifice themselves in the service of man.

You have to be aware of all the latent possibilities that give a work its special character - its atmosphere, its moods, its contrasts.

As an artist, I am interested in telling stories that haven't been told before, stories that are going to affect people, and also stories that shine light on areas of history that haven't had light shined on them before.

Music and movie scripts are books. You want to be literally moved and that's the sort of things I look for.

There is a world of communication which is not dependent on words. This is the world in which the artist operates and for him words can be dangerous unless they are examined in the light of the work. The communication is in the work and words are no substitute for this.

A great painting or symphony or play, doesn't diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of Creation behind the Universe.

Music gives 'wings' to words.

For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life: for it is the passional secret places of life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and flow, cleansing and freshening.

To me, creativity is God. But it will be better if you allow me to change the word god into godliness, because I don't want to be misunderstood. There is no person like God, but there is tremendous energy - exploding, unending, expanding. This expanding, unending, exploding energy, this creativity, is divine.

If the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does, if he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to character, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul.

It is clear that we do not exactly choose our poems; our poems choose us.

Sex energy is the creative energy of all geniuses. There never has been, and never will be a great leader, builder or artist lacking in the driving force of sex.

What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.

In Bach, Beethoven and Wagner we admire principally the depth and energy of the human mind; in Mozart, the divine instinct.

He, who can create, abhors destruction.

Poetry is another space, like love, where we extend that extra credit to the writer.