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

“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?”

“There is a small area of land in Asia Minor that is called Armenia, but it is not so. It is not Armenia. It is a place. There are only Armenians, and they inhabit the earth, not Armenia, since there is no Armenia. There is no America and there is no England, and no France, and no Italy. There is only the earth.”

“Each book can make a life or a fragment of it more beautiful.”

“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))”

“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))”