Serious-Minded People Have Few Ideas. People With Many Ideas Are Never Serious

Paul Valéry? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The following appeared as an epigraph to an article I saw recently: Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious. The words were attributed to the French poet and commentator Paul Valéry. I am not sure precisely what the remark means. Would you please help me …

A Work of Art Is Never Finished, Merely Abandoned

Paul Valéry? W. H. Auden? Anaïs Nin? Maya Deren? Jean Cocteau? Esther Kellner? Gene Fowler? Gore Vidal? Marianne Moore? George Lucas? Oscar Wilde? Question for Quote Investigator: A creative person who is absorbed with the task of generating an artwork hesitates to declare completion. Reworking and improving a piece is always a tantalizing possibility. Here …