A Quote by Frederick Busch

Good art is a form of prayer. It's a way to say what is not sayable.

Frederick Busch

Quote Topics

Art Art Is Form Good Good Art Prayer Say Way

Quote Author

Frederick Busch
American - Writer
August 1, 1941 - February 23, 2006

Prayer is a fine, delicate instrument. To use it right is a great art, a holy art. There is perhaps no greater art than the art of prayer. Yet the least gifted, the uneducated and the poor can cultivate the holy art of prayer.

Ole Hallesby

When you're really caught up in writing a poem, it can be a form of prayer. I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer. I feel it in different degrees and not with every poem. But in certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

Denise Levertov

There are things that are not sayable. That’s why we have art.

Leonora Carrington

The world is beautiful but not sayable. That's why we need art.

Charles Simic

Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound.

Chinua Achebe

Say the prayer first thing in the morning when you open your eyes; then say it again before you go to sleep. Dream the prayer. Feel the prayer with your emotional body. Be the prayer; align your faith and intent with the prayer until your whole life is based on this prayer.

Miguel Angel Ruiz

When we say that prayer puts God to work, it is simply to say that man has it in his power by prayer to move God to work in His own way among men, in which way He would not work if prayer was not made.

Edward McKendree Bounds

Our every thought, image or affirmation is a prayer. Therefore, if everything you think, feel, say or do is a form of prayer, then make it uplifted and exalted.

Mark Victor Hansen

Another form of prayer, called cataphatic, honors and reverences images and feelings and goes through them to God. This form of prayer also has an ancient and well-attested history in the world of religions. Any sort of prayer that highlights the mediation of creation can be called cataphatic. So, praying before icons or images of saints; the mediation of sacraments and sacramentals; prayer out in creation - all these are cataphatic forms of prayer

Gregory A. Boyd

Prayer is vastly superior to worry. With worry, we are helpless; with prayer, we are interceding. When I hear sad news, I try to say a prayer for the victims. When I am troubled, I will say a prayer that asks for relief for myself and for all those who suffer as I do. When I am concerned about my relatives or friends I say a short prayer to myself - "May they be happy and free of suffering."

Mary Pipher

All great art is a visual form of prayer.

Wendy Beckett

Prayer is the highest form, the supreme act of the Creative Imagination. ... For prayer is not a request for something: it is the expression of a mode of being, a means of existing and of causing to exist, ... The organ of Prayer is the heart, the psychospiritual organ, with its concentration of energy, its himma. ... Prayer is a "creator" of vision, ... .

Henry Corbin

Music, for me, is the most sacred of the arts. I say that because music communicates in a way that no other art form can. All great art has a spirit that we recognize and appreciate, but music goes directly to your heart.

Brian Stokes Mitchell

Maybe I was praying for him then, in my own way. Does God have a set way of prayer, a way that He expects each of us to follow? I doubt it. I believe some people-- lots of people-- pray through the witness of their lives, through the work they do, the friendships they have, the love they offer people and receive from people. Since when are words the only acceptable form of prayer?

Dorothy Day

Whatever they are, can Comics be "Art"? Of course they can. The "Art" in a piece is something independent of genre, form, or material. My feeling is that most paintings, most films, most music, most literature and, indeed, most comics fail as "Art." A masterpiece in any genre, form or material is equally "good." It's ridiculous to impose a hierarchy of value on art. The division between high and low art is one that cannot be defended because it has no correlation to aesthetic response.