Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that they will receive my every aid and support. I have even secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless tirade against myself.

Jorge Luis Borges, (autobiographical essay, 1970), in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/35xxiwwa · submitted 1997

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

Frank Zappa, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/nqpwl3vp · submitted 1997

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

Mark Twain, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/zlwhlbfu · submitted 1997

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

Mark Twain, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/g8ncpo30 · submitted 1997

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody has read.

Mark Twain, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hp6j7tok · submitted 1997

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

Igor Stravinsky, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/9dyyuj3l · submitted 1997

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.

Paul Valéry, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/hcrgr6oa · submitted 1997

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.

Voltaire, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/okkjfcye · submitted 1997

Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.

Mark Twain, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/i7sepbck · submitted 1998

The writer, making every effort to appear innocent and noble, takes his revenge with the pen; while the murderer, less hypocrtical, takes it with the sword.

Christopher Spranger, The Effort to Fall, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/fnp4k5bh · submitted 1997

There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.

George Bernard Shaw, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/xrmys3sk · submitted 1997

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

Luciano Pavarotti, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/1kb8kpsn · submitted 1997

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after one grows up.

Pablo Picasso, in Art and Literature

tiny.ag/p6bwfqfr · submitted 1997

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.