Edward Albee Quotes

Art is an infinitely precious good, a draught both refreshing and cheering which restores the stomach and the mind to the natural equilibrium of the ideal.

The activity of art is... as important as the activity of language itself, and as universal.

I think it was Roger Fry who first coined what he took to be a final definition of a work of art, whether it was a painting, building, poem or Hepplewhite chair. He said that the best works of art are finished products that preserve 'a valuable state of mind'.

The delight we find in art amounts to recognition of a saving grace, to an acknowledgment that the problem of life has a solution implicit in its own nature, though not yet formulated by the intellect.

The enemy of art is the enemy of nature; art is nothing but the highest sagacity and exertion of human nature; and what nature will he honour who honours not the human?

Art, if it is successful, needs no explanation.

We started to confuse entertainment with art, because art has a component of entertainment. It has to have that or it becomes too boring. It becomes too lost in its own devices. But I just think that we started to lose, and even before that, it's not necessary.

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 is the result of a creative impulse derived out of a consciousness of life.

Architecture isman'sgreat sense of himself embodied in a world of his own making. It may rise as high in quality only as its source because great art isgreat life.

a work that intends to be art must first be entertaining.

Art is the expression of those beauties and emotions that stir the human soul.

When people say, 'I don't get art' ... that means art is working.

Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art.

A work of art doesn't have to be explained.

No artifact is a work of art if it does not help to humanize us. Without art...our world would have remained a jungle.

The Arts are man's most useless ... and essential ... activity.

Art is the most benign cultural practice, and yet art has an upper bound of personal revelation that is so far away it is basically a horizon.

I realize that every picture isn't a work of art.

I make pictures and someone comes in and calls it art.

I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.

We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art.

Imagine if all those kings and dukes hadn't commissioned those crazy cathedrals, paintings and music... we'd still be living in sticks and mud. Because none of those things made any economic sense. Human beings' capacity to 'waste time' is a miracle - but that's exactly what art is for.

I think it is important to reach people through arts and literature, because then you establish a connection that's not an instant crisis.

I can't think of anything outside of having the gift yourself and creating yourself. I can't think of the next better thing to do than being able to put it back. Creative expression, I think, is vital to the success of any society.... A society without art will die.