Art means to dare - and to have been right.

If asked to list my ten favorite American fiction writers, Gail Godwin would be among them. In this, her latest . . . she evokes in a short book the long married life of two artists. Evenings at Five is a strong tale of love-after-death.

If you read reviews of concerts, the word 'creative' comes up all the time. However, performers playing music usually aren't creative. Critics might say they are, but they're just playing another persons work. They didn't create it.

The hardest of all the arts to speak of is music, because music has no meaning to speak of

Greatness is not the effect of which inspiration is the cause. We are all inspired, but we are all not great.

Artists, by definition innocent, don't steal. But they do borrow without giving back.

The beautiful are shyer than the ugly, for they move in a world that does not ask for beauty.