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Paul Auster Quotes about Art

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For the first time in his life, he stopped worrying about results, and as a consequence the terms “success” and “failure” had suddenly lost their meaning for him. The true purpose of art was not to create beautiful

For the first time in his life, he stopped worrying about results, and as a consequence the terms “success” and “failure” had suddenly lost their meaning for him. The true purpose of art was not to create beautiful objects, he discovered. It was a method of understanding, a way of penetrating the world and finding one’s place in it, and whatever aesthetic qualities an individual canvas might have were almost an incidental by-product of the effort to engage oneself in this struggle, to enter into the thick of things.

Paul Auster
Beautiful, Art, Struggle
Paul Auster (2010). “Moon Palace: A Novel (Penguin Ink)”, p.131, Penguin

I believe that every artist, in one way or another, is a wounded person. It's not natural to make art.

Paul Auster
Art, Believe, Way
Interview with Nathalie Cochoy and Sophie Vallas, transatlantica.revues.org. March 2014.

Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people - more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true - in certain rare, isolated cases.

Paul Auster
Appreciation, Art, Thinking
"I want to tell you a story" by Paul Auster, www.theguardian.com. November 4, 2006.

In the end, the art of hunger can be described as an existential art. It is a way of looking death in the face, and by death I mean death as we live it today: without God, without hope of salvation. Death as the abrupt and absurd end of life

Paul Auster
Art, Mean, Today
Paul Auster (2011). “Collected Prose”, p.505, Faber & Faber

Art is not politics. The glory of the novel is that in its essence, it is a democratic form, because it treats individuals as worthy of scrutiny. That alone is a kind of political act. A good novel about a tea party of rich women can be just as galvanizing and important to the soul as War and Peace, so I think it's not really the job of artists to do anything. They can have their opinions as private citizens, but they must continue making their art.

Paul Auster
Art, War, Thinking
Source: www.macleans.ca

Everyone reads a different book. That's what's interesting. Everyone sees a different film, as well. We bring our past lives to whatever work of art we're experiencing at that moment, and that's what makes it interesting. It's not mathematics. There are different answers for different people.

Paul Auster
Art, Book, Past
Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. September 6, 2008.

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