Nick Flynn Quotes

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects.

It's hard to explain your emotions when you see a work of art.

All sensitive people agree that there is a peculiar emotion provoked by works of art.

As a consumer, I don't create art, but I think whatever the message is, art has to touch you.

When you walk past a painting in a museum, if it doesn't make you feel something, then it's probably a failure.

The learned understand the reason of art; the unlearned feel the pleasure.

I'm a romantic. The impressionists have always been my favorites. I like prettiness - beauty, or what I perceive as beauty.

Grant that the true organ with which the beautiful is apprehended is the imagination, and it follows that all arts are likely to affect the feelings indirectly.

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love.

Art is inspiring. Walking into a gallery, or when the lights go up on a stage; that thrill of getting something that has nothing to do with acquisition.

You know what makes me teary? Goya. Goya makes me cry.

I try to figure out - intellectually, philosophically, psychologically - what the experience of beauty is.

I need art around me always.

Viewing abstract art requires more imagination. The result is more intense involvement of the viewer—more pleasurable.

The beauty of art is that it allows you to slow down, and for a moment, things that once seemed unfamiliar become precious to you.

I don't know if it's art, but I know I like it.

A work of art... is not a living thing... that walks or runs. But the making of a life. That which gives you a reaction. To some it is the wonder of man's fingers. To some it is the wonder of the mind. To some it is the wonder of technique. And to some it is how real it is. To some, how transcendent it is. Like the 5th Symphony, it presents itself with a feeling that you know it, if you have heard it once.

I'm someone who's really susceptible to tears.

Beauty plus pity -- that is the closest we can get to a definition of art.

To be full of joy when looking at an oeuvre is not a little thing.

If I could prescribe a single rule for looking at a work of art it would be to enjoy it. If we're honest with ourselves, we have to admit we enjoy our tears just as much as we enjoy our laughter. The only moments of life that are a bore are when we don't care one way or another.

If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like "Goodness alive!" would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively.