Van Cliburn

An artist can only be evaluated after he’s dead. At the 11th hour he might do something that will eclipse everything else.

Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.

The arts are at the center of a nation’s purpose and a test of civilization.

Eventually, most people felt MoMA had filled a very important gap.

We’re here to bring beauty to the world and make a difference on this planet. That’s what art forms are about.

What’s any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What’s left of the man when the work’s done but a shambles of apology.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.

Can anybody be given creativity? No. Only equipment to develop it if it’s in them in the first place.

Truth exists in art.

The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.

I hope the Guggenheim plan will be revived.

We’ll buy some drugs and watch a band and jump in a river holding hands.

The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

Art is self expression. If you are expressing someone else’s personality, that is not art.

It’s like telling Michelangelo: ‘I know you painted this dope angel, that was really good, but Michelangelo, I don’t think you can paint a cow.’