To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event. – Henri Cartier-Bresson
Every art expression is rooted fundamentally in the personality and temperament of the artist. – Hans Hofmann
What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter – a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue. – Henri Matisse
It does not seem that the contradiction which exists between the aristocratic function of art and the democratic structure of modern society can ever be resolved. – Herbert Read
Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is a fight to the finish between black charcoal and white paper. – Gunter Grass
The influence of cinema on all contemporary writers is undeniable. Because film is such a powerful and popular art form, we prose writers think cinematically. – Hector Tobar
Throwing money at something doesn’t really create – forgive me that onerous word – art. – Harold Prince
A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires. – Hedy Lamarr
The art of utterance persuades initially by its music and its rhythm, before semiotic or personal characteristics come into play. – Helen Vendler
I’m from the beatnik generation, where everybody wanted to be a poet or writer or something. And at that time, I was a jazz critic, and I was always thinking, theorizing about what makes great art or what’s important in art. – Harvey Pekar
Artists and art institutions have to learn how to play hardball. A democratic society needs a democratic art and we have a right to demand it. – Hans Haacke
The great thing that guys like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and the Google guys have in common is they treat their technology like it’s art, and I suppose in the hands of virtuosos like them, it is. – Harvey Weinstein
Art is the fatal net which catches these strange moments on the wing like mysterious butterflies, fleeing the innocence and distraction of common men. – Giorgio de Chirico
The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things. – Henry Ward Beecher
My contemporary art collection began with just needing to put things on the wall. I was looking around my Victorian house thinking, ‘What would be the coolest is contemporary art – it will make me look young and interesting.’ I’m more than 80 percent skeptical of the whole thing. – Hugh Grant
I don’t really have a historical overview of my work at all. I’m not an art historian. I don’t see that there’s this period and that period. – Howard Hodgkin
As I got older I became a kind of sub cultural junkie, foraging around in music, street fashion and eventually art, politics and the freakier reaches of the Internet, hunting the next discovery, the next seam of underground gold. – Hari Kunzru
Art is to me the glorification of the human spirit, and as such it is the cultural documentation of the time in which it is produced. – Hans Hofmann
The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there’s also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral. – Garth Stein
The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough. – George Edward Moore
Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom. – Gustave Flaubert
My job is art curator, not artist. All I have ever wanted to do is immerse myself in art, to enjoy it, to learn about it, to write about it, to talk to others about it. – Hans-Ulrich Obrist
As much as we’d like to believe that our work is great and that we’re infallible, we’re not. Hollywood movies are made for the audience. These are not small European art films we’re making. – Harold Ramis