Art Quote by Janet Malcolm

“Every amateur harbors the fantasy that his work is only waiting to be discovered; a second fantasy-that the established contemporary artists must also be frauds- is a necessary corollary” quote by Janet Malcolm — Download Open image

““Every amateur harbors the fantasy that his work is only waiting to be discovered; a second fantasy-that the established contemporary artists must also be frauds- is a necessary corollary””

Janet Malcolm

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.2 out of 5 (9 ratings)

Art Contemporary art

More by Janet Malcolm

The camera is simply not the supple and powerful instrument of description that the pen is.

Janet Malcolm

Image

“The writer ultimately tires of the subject's self-serving story, and substitutes a story of his own.”

Janet Malcolm

Image

Society mediates between the extremes of, on the one hand, intolerably strict morality and, on the other, dangerously anarchic permissiveness through an unspoken agreement whereby we are given leave to bend the rules of the strictest morality, provided we do so quietly and discreetly. Hypocrisy is the grease that keeps society functioning in an agreeable way, by allowing for human…

Janet Malcolm

Something seems to happen to people when they meet a journalist, and what happens is exactly the opposite of what one would expect. One…

Janet Malcolm

Image

The ‘I’ character in journalism is almost pure invention. Unlike the ‘I’ of autobiography, who is meant to be seen as a representation of the writer, the ‘I’ of journalism is connected to the writer only in a tenuous way—the way, say, that Superman is connected to Clark Kent. The journalistic ‘I’ is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom…

Janet Malcolm

I don't want to manipulate actuality; I want to record it.

Janet Malcolm

Image

The journalistic 'I' is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad…

Janet Malcolm

Image

“The subject of a piece of writing has not suffered the tension and anxiety endured by the subject of the "Eichmann experiment" (as it…

Janet Malcolm

Image

People talk in ungrammatical, unwriterly ways.

Janet Malcolm

Image

This is what it is the business of the artist to do. Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your…

Janet Malcolm

Image

The journalist confines himself to the clean, gentlemanly work of exposing the griefs and shames of others.

Janet Malcolm

Image

The dominant and most deep-dyed trait of the journalist is his timorousness. Where the novelist fearlessly plunges into the water of self-exposure, the journalist…

Janet Malcolm

Image

Explore all 62 Janet Malcolm quotes

More Art quotes

True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Image

Before Noah, men having only water to drink, could not find the truth. Accordingly...they became abominably wicked, and they were justly exterminated by the water they loved to drink. This good man, Noah, having seen that all his contemporaries had perished by this unpleasant drink, took a dislike to it; and God, to relieve his dryness, created the vine and…

Benjamin Franklin

“Hear the sum of the whole matter in the compass of one brief word — every art possessed by man comes from Prometheus.”

Aeschylus

Image

I think most artists feel like they're outside society - no matter how many accolades they receive, or how much money is in your…

Aaron Rose

Image

The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.

Erich Fromm

Image

That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

Ray Bradbury

Image

“So, really," continued Jacob as if this were perfectly normal to expound on art in these circumstances, "when you think about it, the artists who make people stop and think, who push the form, who make you uncomfortable, who are laughable, well, they're the ones who get remembered." Idly, Jacob dug a hole in the snow with his shovel and…

Justina Chen Headley