Tennessee Williams Quotes

...The more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

The purpose of all art is to cause a deep and emotion, also one that is entertaining or pleasing. Out of the depth and entertainment comes value.

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.

All art is contemporary art because it had to be made when it was now.

Great art always transcends its culture, while lesser art merely reflects it.

I don't know of any good work of art that doesn't have a mystery.

This is the theory… that anything that is art… is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it’s irritating.

For it is a plain fact that, most certainly in the West, the writings, works of art, musical compositions which are of central reference, comport that which is "grave and constant" (Joyce's epithets) in the mystery of our condition.

The final test of a work of art is not whether it has beauty, but whether it has power.

As my uncle always says, 'If your vibe outweighs your substance, you're destined to be a novelty.' I think that is true in all art.

True art takes note not merely of form but also of what lies behind.

Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of which life is capable, and we value art not because of the skilled product, but because of its revelation of a life's experience.

The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.

A work of art is a world in itself reflecting senses and emotions of the artist's world. Just as a flower, by virtue of its existence as a complete organism is both ornamental and self-sufficient as to color, form, and texture, so art, because of its singular existence is more than mere ornament.

No erotic work of art is filth if it is artistically significant; it is only turned into filth through the beholder if he is filthy.

Art for art's sake is dead, if it ever lived.

grievance does not make for great art.

There is something wrong with a work of art if it can be understood by a policeman.

Art is good, bad, boring, ugly, useful to us or not. It does or doesn't disturb optical monotony, and succeeds or fails in surmounting sterility of style or visual stereotype; it creates new beauty or it doesn't.

I am afraid that as evangelicals, we think that a work of art only has value if we reduce it to a tract.

All art is immortal. For emotion for the sake of emotion is the aim of art, and emotion for the sake of action is the aim of life.

I'd always wanted to know the difference between a mark that was art and one that wasn't.

The word "art" does not designate the concept of a mere eventuality; it is a concept of rank.

The closer and more completely you can come to explaining what a work of art means, the less like art it seems.