“The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.”

A man of genius has a right to any mode of expression.

There is natural ignorance and there is artificial ignorance. I should say at the present moment the artificial ignorance is about eighty-five per cent.

If a patron buys from an artist who needs money (needs money to buy tools, time, food), the patron then makes himself equal to the artist; he is building art into the world; he creates.

If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.

With one day’s reading a man may have the key in his hands.

And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse Not shaking the grass.

Glance is the enemy of vision.

Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.

Man is an over-complicated organism. If he is doomed to extinction he will die out for want of simplicity.

Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.

To say that a state cannot pursue its aims because there is no money, is like saying that an engineer cannot build roads, because there are no kilometers.

Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance, poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.

If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.

Genius, is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

The primary pigment of poetry is the IMAGE.

Once we decided to do a tower in New York, it had to say something about our group, reflecting the mix of modernity and creativity in our organization. It’s a symbol.

Diversity has got to be a part of modern feminism, and I think that my feminism is stronger because its an inclusive thing. I won’t be backed into a corner that polarizes me against other women. And I wished they wouldn’t be either.

The origin of a modern party is anthropological: humans meet and share food to lower hostility between them and indicate friendship.

Is there any man here or any woman, let me say is there any child here, who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?

The truth is always modern and there never comes a time when it is safe to give it voice.

I look up to Rihanna and Rita Ora. They obviously wear a lot of gold jewelry and have this urban feel to them.

I know this, and I know it from actual experience in the Orient, that the progress of modern Christian civilization has largely depended on the earnest hard work of the Christian missions of every denomination.

You cannot act a color. Do not tell me I’m acting black, because I’m not. I’m acting whatever you want to call it – urban. I don’t even have a name for it. I just call it ‘me.’