Part of the task of the artist is to reach across boundaries, to love and empathize with the other, the stranger.

Art should help you to navigate the real challenges of being a human being.

The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity.

The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity and one's knowledge of human life.

Now more than ever, we must look to our artists to be our truthtellers and to challenge us toward creative solutions to the many problems mankind faces.

The arts in every field — music, drama, sculpture, painting — we can learn to appreciate and enjoy. We need not be artists, but we should be able to appreciate the work of artists. (5 November 1958)

The thing is that any work of art that has something in it will always challenge people: Some, in one respect; the others, in another respect. But you will find out that people keep on going back to that work because there is always something challenging in it.

Today, all the normal mischances of living have been multiplied, a million-fold, by the potentialities for destruction, for an unthinking act of collective suicide, which man's very triumphs in science and invention have brought about. In this situation the artist has a special task and duty: the task of reminding men of their humanity and the promise of their creativity.

I truly believe that art (and I use this term loosely here to refer to all forms of creative expression) provides an incredible opportunity for people to bring their full selves to their activism. We are not one-dimensional beings and thus we are affected and influenced by all of the things around us. I see art as an opportunity to take some of the very complex concepts and issues that we face on a daily basis and break them down in ways that are more palatable and easily digestible by young people.

In this sense, we should continually be striving to transform every art into a science: in the process, we advance the art.

Only through apprehending, by means of present-day creations, how art is created, can the creations of other periods be genuinely appreciated.

Art enlarges experience by admitting us to the inner life of others.

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place.

Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.