Harvey Pekar Quotes

I don't think there's any formula for what makes great art.

A proof of really great art is that it is generally true - it seldom falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable.

Great art is an instant arrested in eternity.

There's an audience for all kinds of great art.

In the hands of a great poet, words have ways of affecting us in ways we don't understand.

I don't think I'm making any great statements, and I certainly don't think I'm making art.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art.

I'm a disciple of Raymond Chandler, who said in his essays that there's a quality of redemption in anything that can be called art.

I do not feel any artist can produce great art without putting great personality into it. It is always a piece of you that goes on the screen or the canvass.

I really appreciate anyone trying to inject art into mainstream film.

Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.

Great art is the expression of a solution of the conflict between the demands of the world without and that within.

A great painting is a great painting.

Poetry is almost like my foundation for everything. I almost feel I am a better actor and writer because of it.

Writing is very much perceived as something distinct from performance. I don't see it like that.

The world isn't all happy, shiny people, and great art doesn't come from vanilla. Great art comes from people with a point of view and are very passionate.

For me, when I started writing, it was mostly poetry. And poetry is very visual. I feel the same way about the way that I approach direction. There might be a theme within the visuals that you're choosing that people don't consciously pick up on, but that they feel.

As an artist, I will always give art more importance and preference than pure entertainment.

I hate being called poet/dramatist/translator/director. 'Poet' covers it all for me.

When art is about craftsmanship, then guys like me don't make it as artists.

I was never totally sold on this idea that I'm just a musician. I wanted to be the Tim Burton of music.

Art is a gift and if nobody hears it, that doesn't make it any less of a gift.

My mind is stuffed with quotes. Lines, couplets, paragraphs, stanzas; Bessie Smith, Stevie Smith, Tin Pan Alley, rock and roll. They tease or lead or hurl me into a dream space of jostling languages that I need to bask in each day in order to write.

When it comes to poetry, I think partly the numbers of people attempting to write poems is probably a result or the reaction to technology.

I personally don't distinguish between artistic and commercial films.