"Why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of a bird?"
"...why did Plato say that poets should be chased out of the republic? Precisely because every poet and every artist is an antisocial being. He's not that way because he wants to be; he can't be any other way.... and if he really is an artist it is in his nature not to want to be admitted, because if he is admitted it can only mean he is doing something which is understood, approved, and therefore old hat - worthless. Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized."
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Source: Elizabeth Cowling, Pablo Picasso (2002). “Picasso: style and meaning”, Phaidon Press
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"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."
"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist."
"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."
"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."