"The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies."

Art, Writer, Responsibility, Dream

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"The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies."

Exlpore more Art quotes

"Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art."

Ambrose Bierce, American Journalist

Art, Sun

"The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science."

Erich Fromm, American Psychologist

Art, Science, Creation

"I see my life in terms of music."

Albert Einstein, German Scientist

Art, Life, Music, Perception, Emotion

"Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding."

Ambrose Bierce, American Journalist

Art, Limitations, Thinking

"The truth is not that we need the critics in order to enjoy the authors, but that we need the authors in order to enjoy the critics."

C. S. Lewis, British Author

Art, Truth, Critics, Authors

"History develops, art stands still."

E. M. Forster, English Novelist

Art, History

"We are all artists painting our desires on the canvas of life and time."

Steven Redhead, British Author

Art, Life, Time, Creation

"To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job."

Simone de Beauvoir, French Writer

Art, Husband, Job

"The claims I'm making for art are simply the claims that we naturally make around music or around poetry. We're much more relaxed around those art forms. We're willing to ask, 'How could this find a place in my heart?'"

Alain de Botton, English Writer

Art, Heart, Culture, Poetry

"As useful as an unhappy artist. As useless as a happy philosopher."

Mokokoma Mokhonoana, South African Philosopher

Art, Happiness, Philosophy, Values

Explore more quotes by William Faulkner

"I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from."

Wisdom

"She was bored. She loved, had capacity to love, for love, to give and accept love. Only she tried twice and failed twice to find somebody not just strong enough to deserve it, earn it, match it, but even brave enough to accept it."

Longing

"I don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don't know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it -- you can't teach it."

Creativity

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."

Time

"Man will not merely endure; he will prevail."

Discipline

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth."

Activism

"I will never lie again."

Truth

"Though children can accept adults as adults, adults can never accept children as anything but adults too."

Society

"Freedom comes with the decision: it does not wait for the act."

Freedom

"Only fools imply compliments. The wise man comes right out with it, point-blank. Imply criticism--unless the criticized isn't within earshot."

Manners