“It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.”

“The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist. The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all.”

“...TV and popular film and most kinds of 'low' art-- which just means art whose primary aim is to make money-- is lucrative precisely because it recognizes that audiences prefer 100 percent pleasure to the reality that tends to be 49 percent pleasure and 51 percent pain. Whereas 'serious' art, which is not primarily about getting money out of you, is more apt to make you uncomfortable, or to force you to work hard to access its pleasures, the same way that in real life true pleasure is usually a by-product of hard work and discomfort.”

“Life is serious but art is fun!”

“Why is it so hard to be serious, so easy to be too serious?”

“Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.”