Salman Rushdie Quotes

I have to say that I reject somewhat the distinction between something called art and something called public art. I think all art demands and desires to be seen.

I've always been drawn to artists who paint for the everyday person. I love the American illustrators.

From a very young age, I would fall off the bed and wake up on the floor because of dreams. I have a memory from the age of four in which I felt God.

I'd like to spend a day in Jesus's life. That'd be the most insane thing ever. I would love to do that.

And, moreover, it is art in its most general and comprehensive form that is here discussed, for the dialogue embraces everything connected with it, from its greatest object, the state, to its least, the embellishment of sensuous existence.

Seeing that picture, for me, was like Chartres Cathedral.

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.

My Catholic faith is my life. Any artist, if he is to be faithful to how he perceives the world and to the nature of his creative gifts, cannot divorce the two. To create is to love. To love is to create.

Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.

One of the few things that will remain of this time is what artists are doing. They are the journal and the diary of our time.

The modern world thinks of art as very important: something close to the meaning of life.

In England, pop art and fine art stand resolutely back to back.

Art is the signature of a generation; artists have a way of defining the times.

Any work of art that can be understood is the product of journalism. The rest, called literature, is a dossier of human imbecility for the guidance of future professors.

Art matters not merely because it is the most magnificent ornament and the most nearly unfailing occupation of our lives, but because it is life itself.

Art is love and it covers. It sheilds.

Everything about art has become problematic; its inner life, its relation to society, even its right to exist.

if I love something I do it, and if I don't, I don't. I think that this is the most important choice that any of us can make in life, in art, in history: to do the thing you love. If you love it, it is important. If you love it then while you are doing it, you are a true expression of yourself and your time and your story. You are authentic. If you don't love it you betray not only yourself but also your history, your culture, your position in your society.

Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life.

There must be something about art... almost all cultures have done art. It's a refining of the senses, which are there to keep us alive. As far as we know, no other animals do that.

Art in the art world, and culture in general, are branches of the media, which produces our political and social thinking climate.

A Theologian has nothing on a man who has experienced God

What deep and worthy love is so, whether of woman or child, or art or music. Our caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under the influence of autumn sunsets, or pillared vistas, or calm majestic statues, or Beethoven symphonies all bring with them the consciousness that they are mere waves and ripples in an unfathomable ocean of love and beauty; our emotion in its keenest moment passes from expression into silence, our love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object and loses itself in the sense of divine mystery.

Is it conceivable that mysticism is a mark of inadequate art?

The arts have long been an integral and vibrant part of our nation's cultural heritage. In its many forms, art enables us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and of our society. Providing us with a unique way to learn about people of other cultures, it allows us to discover all that we have in common. At its best, art can beautify our cities, encourage economic development and social change, and profoundly affect the ways we live our lives.