Apropos of the purpose of art:
Quote Originally Posted by J.D.Salinger
"I know this much, is all," Franny said. "If you are a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean, you're supposed to leave something beautiful after your get off the page and everything. The ones you are talking about don't leave a single, solitary thing beautiful. All that maybe the slightly better ones do is sort of get inside your head and leave something there, but just because they do, just because they know how to leave something, it doesn't have to be a poem, for heaven's sake. It maybe just some kind of terribly fascinating, syntaxy droppings—excuse the expression."

J.D. Salinger, Franny