Rosie O'Donnell Quotes

Arts education must be part of our education solution because it works for all students.

The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society.

Learning is about much more than science and math. Doing theater, music, and art in school really helps children's minds grow because they're using different parts of their brains. Parents who care should insist on that.

One thing I hate about school committees today is that they cut arts programs out of the curriculum because they say the arts aren't a way to make a living.

Art is a luxury but also a necessity.

How can we accept a situation in which there are no longer orchestras, choruses, libraries or art classes to nourish our children? We need more support for the arts, not less -- particularly to make this rich world available to young people whose vision is choked by a stark reality. How many children, who have no other outlet in their lives for their grief, have found solace in an instrument to play or a canvas to paint on? When you take into consideration the development of the human heart, soul and imagination, don't the arts take on just as much importance as math or science?

Art is not a luxury, but a necessity.

I feel sorry for kids nowadays, because in the majority of schools across the country, the arts have been eliminated from the curriculum. There's no art; there's no music. In some cases they've taken away the libraries. They don't do theater. And these are the things that speak to the human soul.

The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.

I would be devastated if my son could not have music as part of his curriculum in school. It should not be a choice between culture and technical training - well-rounded students and graduates will make appropriate choices for their careers, but they must also be trained to make appropriate social choices.

When you write songs you're commenting on love, you're commenting on sex, relationships, whatever it is that you decide to write about it. And I've wanted to write about politics or spiritual ideas for years.

When I was growing up, there were a lot more arts in the public schools. Politically, America has screwed up on that.

School curricula that ignore the arts produce highly educated Barbarians

All these children [who did not have music and art classes at school] go out into the world without knowing that there is anything other than what they have. Of course, children do look at TV, but what does it give them?

The arts are not a luxury. They are an integral part of our lives as individuals and as a nation.

From music and dance to painting and sculpting, the arts allow us to explore new worlds and to view life from another perspective. They also encourage individuals to sharpen their skills and to nurture their imagination and intellect.

Art is not to do with the practical side of making a living. It's to live a fuller human life.

Art is man's refuge from adversity.

Every day, through engagement in the arts, our children learn to open their imagination, to dream just a little bigger and to strive every day to reach those dreams.

I think great art should play a part in the ordinary man's life, don't you? It can make his existence so much richer and more meaningful.

I know how art has come in and really changed my life, so to give these children that opportunity just to come into contact with art - that's wonderful.

We human beings are spiritual beings. We have soul. We have spirit. We have mind. We have consciousness. We want fulfillment, we want happiness, we want satisfaction, we want joy. We want imagination. We want art, culture, music.

Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter. Art is an organ of human life, transmitting man's reasonable perception into feeling.

I am adamant that we must not cut back on funding of the teaching of the arts in the schools: music, painting, theater, dance, all of it. The great thing about the arts is that the only way you learn how to do it is by doing it.

The arts and humanities teach us who we are and what we can be. They lie at the very core of the culture of which we're a part.