Lorraine Toussaint Quotes

I think for me, any great art is art which communicates human emotion.

Music is an emotional experience, and that is what imprints itself on the soul. And I think for me, any great art is art which communicates human emotion.

Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different.

I'm drawn to scenes in movies where you just see characters turning off lights in a room or putting the groceries away; it's like, 'I understand that.' We all have to get ready for bed, and we all do it in a different way, and yet it's all strangely familiar and strangely human.

I'm an average girl with an average family - and I hope people can see that.

Any piece of art has the potential to emotionally touch you and nudge you.

But I am not sure it would contain any short stories. For the short story is a minor art, and it must content itself with moving, exciting and amusing the reader. ...I do not think that there is any (short story) that will give the reader that thrill, that rapture, that fruitful energy which great art can produce.

Great art transcends its culture and touches on that which is eternal.

I love the way art moves people emotionally. I love the fact that when someone purchases art it is the one thing that will last for generations.

A work of art... is not a living thing... that walks or runs. But the making of a life. That which gives you a reaction. To some it is the wonder of man's fingers. To some it is the wonder of the mind. To some it is the wonder of technique. And to some it is how real it is. To some, how transcendent it is. Like the 5th Symphony, it presents itself with a feeling that you know it, if you have heard it once.

I feel like the movie is reminding people of who they are, which is what I think all great art does.

I have a suggestion for all of those award seekers and blue ribbon hunters. Spend your efforts on making art that connects with people. Awards impress the grandkids but they don't move the gauge on selling your product. Art needs to touch the emotions of the buyer.

What's great about art is that if you can reach people, if they hear or see what you do and it moves them, there's a commonality.

Man is apt to be more moved by the art of his own period, not because it is more perfect, but because it is organically related to him.

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

It is the mark of great art that its appeal is universal and eternal.............. Great art remains stable and unobscure because the feelings that it awakens are independent of time and place, because its kingdom is not of this world. To those who have and hold a sense of the significance of form what does it matter whether the forms that move them were created in Paris the day before yesterday or in Babylon fifty centuries ago? The forms of art are inexhaustible; but all lead by the same road of aesthetic emotion to the same world of aesthetic ecstasy.

Only the very greatest art invigorates without consoling.

I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.

A great work of art is one that truly moves and inspires you. You yourself must be moved. Don't look at art with others' eyes. Don't listen to music with others' ears. You must react to art with your own feelings, your own heart and mind.

There's something about the authenticity rather than the autobiography that makes my story and my pain move across and become your story and your pain.

Great works of art can be produced in barbarous societies - in fact the very narrowness of primitive society gives their ornamental art a peculiar concentration and vitality. At some time in the ninth century one could have looked down the Seine and seen the prow of a Viking ship coming up the river. Looked at today in the British Museum, it is a powerful work of art; but to the mother of a family trying to settle down in her little hut, it would have seemed less agreeable - as menacing to her civilisation as the periscope of a nuclear submarine.

I don't how I can describe the quality that is only found in art (be it music, literature, painting, or whatever), this quality, it's just there, and it endures.

Less disappointing than life, great works of art do not begin by giving us all their best.

I think everybody wants to connect. There is nothing worse than feeling disconnected. And stories that really move people and make people care are the ones where they feel some sort of connection.

Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life.