When we are moved by art we are grateful that the artist lived, grateful that he labored in the service of his gifts.

We are only alive to the degree that we can let ourselves be moved.

All that we make and do is shaped by the communities and traditions that contain us, not to mention by money, power, politics, and luck. And even should the artist or scientist think she has extracted herself from the world to stand alone in the studio, a tremendous array of faculties and mind-states may well attend her creativity.

True citizens are not the audience of their government, nor its consumers; they are its makers.

For the slow labor of realizing a potential gift the artist must retreat to those Bohemias, halfway between the slums and the library, where life is not counted by the clock and where the talented may be sure they will be ignored until that time, if it ever comes, when their gifts are viable enough to be set free and survive in the world.

Uncovering secrets is apocalyptic in the simple sense (the Greek root means ‘an uncovering’). In this case, it lifts the shame covers. It allows articulation to enter where silence once ruled.

When we are moved by art we are grateful that the artist lived, grateful that he labored in the service of his gifts.