Kitsch is deceptive. It has many different levels, and some of them are high enough to be dangerous to the naive seeker of true light.

A poor life is lived by any one who doesn't regularly take time out to stand and gaze, or sit and listen, or touch, or smell, or brood, without any further end in mind, simply for the satisfaction gotten from what is gazed at, listened to, touched, smelled, or brooded upon.

The avant-garde poet or artist tries in effect to imitate God by creating something valid solely on its own terms.

You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read it. The work of art-sculpture or painting-forces your eye.

Art is a matter strictly of experience, not of principles and what counts first and last in art is quality, all other things are secondary.

All profoundly original art looks ugly at first.

Art criticism, I would say, is about the most ungrateful form of 'elevated' writing I know of. It may also be one of the most challenging.. if only because so few people have done it well enough to be remembered.. but I'm not sure the challenge is worth it.