“To create works of art meant no less to him than to paint life, not mere reality, but the principle of life.”

“The most beautiful work of art that we can create is this life.”

“But perhaps the the great work of art has less importance in itself than in the ordeal it demands of a man and the opportunity it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality.”

“Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.”

“A corollary of this has been that Christians have thought that they should only create art with a Pollyanna quality to it: paintings of birds and kittens, movies that extol family life and end happily, songs that are positive and uplifting – in short, works of art that show a world that is almost unfallen where no one experiences conflict and where sin is naughty rather than wicked.”

“Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”