Any great work of art… revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world — the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air. – Leonard Bernstein, What Makes Opera Grand?
Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. – Fran Lebowitz
[M]y love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break… – Sullivan Ballou, letter to wife Sarah, 14 July 1861
