Alain de Botton Quotes

I think art is good at looking back and looking forward. I don't think art is good at looking head-on. At the end of the day, people are more important than paintings.

Art matters.

I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us.

If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.

The whole Modernist lie is that art is about the artist.

Art is not meant to change the world.

I mean, art for art's sake is ridiculous. Art is for the sake of one's needs.

I don't believe that art is just for entertainment. I want to create art that is meaningful in some way.

Never has there been a close study of how necessary to a man are the experiences which we clumsily call aesthetic

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the public's relationship to art has been weakened by a profound institutional reluctance to address the question of what art is for. This is a question that has, quite unfairly, come to feel impatient, illegitimate, and a little impudent.

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

The essential argument in the book, 'Art as Therapy,' is that art enjoys such financial and cultural prestige that it's easy to forget the confusion that persists about what it's really for.

Whether I act or direct I ensure that there is a social message attached.

Art is not journalism. In art, you don't make it to convey a message.

A lot of people are intimated by art, but it's something to be revered beyond criticism.

The trumped-up charges against kitsch and sentimentality should disturb us and make us suspicious.

I believe that art can make relevant and progressive contributions to culture and society.

I never considered myself an entertainer. I always felt I had to be connected to something meaningful, or it wasn't worth doing.

My work or art form should represent the kind of world view I believe in.

Artwork operates on two different levels: On one level, there's artwork as a mode of expressivity, and then there's the other side, where the image is a construction that is meant to engage in a discursive field in order to perform a particular function.

I kind of roll my eyes when people say they make music for themselves or they make art just for themselves, because, maybe in their head, what that means is that they're making it for someone who they don't think is real. Their audience isn't real. But it's still a communicative act. It's still an outward manifestation of longing.

We make movies to endorse our own personal feelings. I am not, in fact, a documentary filmmaker. I've got my personal beliefs, and I'm ready to put them out on the table.

I hate art as a be-all and an end-all.

The reason I make music is to make people feel something, anything.

That's the cool thing that music can do: make you feel this or that way. That's all I've ever wanted to achieve - I'm a music guy, you know? That's my occupation.