“All great art has madness, and quite a lot of bad art has it, too.”

“The purpose of art is to give the traveling human race an improved map that shows the way to itself. If art isn't for *that*, what is it for?”

“The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.”

“Wars, for us, are either inevitable, or created. Whatever they are, they should not wholly vitiate art. What art needs is greater men, and what politics needs is better men.(Something About a Soldier (1940))”

“I have managed to conceal my madness fairly effectively, and as far as I know it hasn't hurt anybody badly, for which I am grateful.”

“The real story can never be told. It is untellable. The real (as real) is inaccessible, being gone in time. There is no point in glancing at the past, in summoning it up, in re-examining it, except on behalf of art — that is, the meaningful-real.(The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952))”

“Their singing wasn’t particularly good, but the feeling with which they sang was not bad at all.”