Subject: Entertainment » Art

Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire?… the one nearest the door of course.

(1856 – 1950) Irish playwright & socialist

Sex is like art; most of it is pretty bad, and the good stuff is out of your price range.

writer, website creator

The murals in restaurants are on par with the food in museums.

(1910 – 1993) editor & novelist

There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.

(1812 – 1870) English novelist

Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.

(1935 – ) movie actor, director & comedian

Man: Mr. Melon, your wife was just showing us her Klimt [an Austrian painter].

Thornton Melon: You too, huh? She’s shown it to everybody.

(1921 – 2004) stand-up comedian & actor

If an artist has talent, he needs no other critic.

American writer

Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.

(1856 – 1925) American artist & portrait painter

Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali; he was using a dotted line… he caught every other fish.

(1955 – ) comedian, actor & writer

I don’t paint things; I only paint the difference between things.

(1869 – 1954) French artist

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist

Rembrandt painted 700 pictures; of these, 3,000 are still in existence.

(1845 – 1929) German art historian & curator

The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do? 

(1881 – 1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker & stage designer

Art, like morality, consists in drawing a line somewhere.

(1874 – 1936) English author & mystery novelist

I always ask the sitter if they want truth or flattery; they always ask for truth, and I always give them flattery.

(1911 – 1990) English painter

No great artist ever sees things as they really are; if he did, he would cease to be an artist.

(1854 – 1900) Irish dramatist, novelist & poet

A first rate soup is better than a second rate painting.

(1908 – 1970) American professor of psychology

Why should I paint dead fish, onions and beer glasses; girls are so much prettier. 

(1883 – 1956) French painter & printmaker

Abstract Art: The proof that things are not as bad as they are painted to be.

The Venus de Milo is a good example of what happens to somebody who won't stop biting her fingernails.

(1879 – 1935) humorist & social commentator

The Mushroom in Christian Art