“Art is to console those who are broken by life.” – Vincent Van Gogh

Today is part two of my “Living Out Loud” series: Quotes from creatives about creativity, art and inspiration, sound and fury, sturm und drang.

“Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.” –Flannery O’Connor

“Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move.” – Ossie Davis

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Art is what you can get away with.” – Andy Warhol

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” – G.K. Chesterton

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” – Banksy

“Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they’re having a piss.” – Banksy

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.” – Ansel Adams

 “All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.” – James Baldwin

“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.” – Walt Whitman

 “I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.” – W. Somerset Maugham

“A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.” – Albert Camus

 “All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art.” – Roman Payne

 “Art is the reason I get up in the morning, but the definition ends there. It doesn’t seem fair that I’m living for something I can’t even define.” – Ani DiFranco

“It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.” – John Irving

“Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.” – Pope John Paul II

“Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.” – Claude Monet

“Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

“Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.” – Victor Pinchuk