Robert A. Heinlein on an artist’s job & 2 other thoughts

I know when I am developing a character, the biggest challenge is to show that like life itself he or she is not one dimensional. And that something in him or her is really also in the reader  too, whether the reader likes it or not. This quote resonates. Regardless if anyone agrees with Heinlein or agrees if Rodin accomplishes this, I thought it was good food for thought worth sharing. 

“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is…and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be…and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart…no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn’t matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them.”  — Robert A. Heinlein

And these two thoughts:

I am still considering this one, given one can live for love and that too is something one may not be able to quite define….

“Art is the reason I get up in the morning, but the definition ends there. It doesn’t seem fair that I’m living for something I can’t even define.” ~  Ani DiFranco

And I don’t know about bad or good, but I do know the way one lives determines much in one’s craft.

“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.”  ~ Alice Walker

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