Robert Musil Quotes

The truth won't stay hidden and will come out.

Audiences like making discoveries.

If you are going to try and hide something, sooner or later people are going to find out.

I've laid my friends bare.

Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.

I've always felt you unearth story, like you're on an archeological dig.

Make my breast transparent as pure crystal, that the world, jealous of me, may see the foulest thought my heart does hold.

What was once underground is now coming to the surface.

Time and events bring out the truth, but they also deal a mortal blow.

Things can’t be kept secret forever.

Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long.

What I'm trying to do with my work is to break open things that are sealed, that are under siege.

Nature/Structure. There is no more to say. In my pictures I reduce to that. But 'reduce' is the wrong word, because these are not simplifications. I can't verbalize what I am working on: to me, it is many-layered by definition; it is what is more important, what is more true.

Painting seems like some kind of peculiar miracle that I need to have again and again.

I believe that the reason why I love painting so much is that it forces one to be objective. There is nothing I hate more than sentimentality.

The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don't have the resonance of an encyclical from the Pope stating an eternal truth, but they partake of the quality of eternity. There is a sort of timeless delight in them.

All writing is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to find out. If you know everything up front in the beginning, you really don't need to read further if there's nothing else to find out.

Now to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the products of reflection.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

I like deconstructing things. I like cutting the legs out from under something that feels secret.

There is nothing which is secret save it shall be revealed; there is no work of darkness save it shall be made manifest in the light; and there is nothing which is sealed upon the earth save it shall be loosed.

A book is only dangerous when it unmasks something that many people want hidden or it brings to the forefront an issue that many want marginalized.

The Truth, sometimes not sought for, comes forth to the light.

Art is transformative. It's not 2+2=4. It works like the sea. It changes geography through its constant and relentless movement, just the way plants and water shape the world.

The real prize is finding something new out there.