Bo Wang

“To Vincent, his art was a record of his life more true, more revealing (“how deep—how infinitely deep”) even than the storm of letters that always accompanied it. Every wave of “serenity and happiness,” as well as every shudder of pain and despair, he believed, found its way into paint; every heartbreak into heartbreaking imagery; every picture into self-portraiture. “I want to paint what I feel,” he said, “and feel what I paint.”
― Steven Naifeh, Van Gogh

“The faculty for myth is innate in the human race. It seizes with avidity upon any incidents, surprising or mysterious, in the career of those who have at all distinguished themselves from their fellows, and invents a legend to which it then attaches a fanatical belief.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Moon and Sixpence

“It is a grotesque misapprehension which sees in art no more than a craft comprehensible perfectly only to the craftsman: art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Moon and Sixpence

“There’s one thing you must remember—you can regulate your emotions. Once again, it is a skill, like any other. Calming down the unpleasant feelings when necessary, reinforcing the positive ones, whenever you want. In every single moment of your life, you can feel exactly as you want to feel. It will guide you directly to the conscious life in which creating lasting relationships and making new challenges will be accompanied by excitement and enjoyment rather than fear and stress.”
― Ian Tuhovsky, Emotional Intelligence: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Emotions and Raising Your EQ