Penn Jillette Art Quotations

I love when violent, dangerous art is done by people who are not violent and dangerous. I love that when George Romero was making 'Dawn of the Dead,' he was coaching his son's little league team.

The purpose of art is to collide the intellectual and visceral together at the highest speed possible.

Performers have the right to say what they want to, and anyone paying money has the right to accept or reject the art and entertainment that's available.

I think it was Laurence Olivier who said that one of the things you have to accept in art is that when you put your heart into doing something there will be people who don't like it for really good reasons, really smart people who don't like what you've done for very valid reasons. That is hard to accept, that there are really valid reasons for not liking anything. The astonishing thing is that there haven't been many valid reasons for anyone not to like this movie.

I'm really happy with all the art that was inspired by religion, and I think I'd be tickled to little tiny pieces if art in the future was inspired by other things.

Technology adds nothing to art.

The whole world is pretending the breakthrough is in technology. The bottleneck is really in art.

Building a professional relationship on respect as opposed to affection is a very good idea. Running your art projects the way you'd run a dry-cleaning business is also a really good idea. You shouldn't go into work like you're going on a date, like you're hanging out with friends.

Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision.

In music, if you hit a wrong note, people forgive you. In magic when something goes wrong, the entire art is destroyed.