John Dutton Quotes

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n. – John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), Book 1, lines 254–5

Readers who are interested in an excellent review of where medicine is today vis-à-vis the mind-body connection should read The Healer Within by Steven Locke, MD, and Douglas Colligan (New York: Dutton, 1986).

Michael A. Woodley makes the point that individuals who can properly be classified as geniuses necessarily have brains that are wired differently from normal; they are programmed to focus on their destined tasks and therefore may be unable to deal with the small details of day to day affairs.61 For instance, Einstein once got lost not far from his home in Princeton, New Jersey. He went into a shop and said, ‘Hi, I’m Einstein, can you take me home please?’ He could not drive a car, and many tasks and chores that most people take for granted were beyond him.62 Woodley’s conclusion flows from the idea of genius as a group-selected trait adapted to be an asset to other people. In sum, the potential genius needs to be looked after; because in terms of negotiating the complexities of human society he is likely to be vulnerable and fragile. The corollary of which is that when geniuses are not looked after, they are less likely to fulfil their potential, and everybody loses. For instance, the American reclusive poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was ‘managed’ by Colonel T.W. Higginson; Jane Austen (1775-1817) flourished in the obscurity of her family and the critic and social philosopher John Ruskin (1819-1900) was sheltered and nurtured by his parents, then a cousin. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was looked after by his brother Friars; Genetics-founder Johann Mendel (1822-1884) was secluded in a monastery; Pascal (1623-1662) was looked after by his aristocratic French family.63 Plus many another genius was sustained by a capable wife – Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) depended on his, older, wife Adele; and would only eat food prepared by her; so that when she was hospitalized, Gödel literally starved.

Life and Letters (New York: Knopf, 1972); and John E. Washington, They Knew Lincoln (New York: Dutton, 1942). Of course, no work was more important than Elizabeth Keckley’s own memoir, Behind the Scenes (New York, G. W. Carleton & Company,

Go ruin someone else's day

The Healer Within by Steven Locke, MD, and Douglas Colligan (New York: Dutton, 1986).

I read a heap of books to prepare to write my own. Valuable works about art crime include The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick, Master Thieves by Stephen Kurkjian, The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser, Possession by Erin Thompson, Crimes of the Art World by Thomas D. Bazley, Stealing Rembrandts by Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg, Crime and the Art Market by Riah Pryor, The Art Stealers by Milton Esterow, Rogues in the Gallery by Hugh McLeave, Art Crime by John E. Conklin, The Art Crisis by Bonnie Burnham, Museum of the Missing by Simon Houpt, The History of Loot and Stolen Art from Antiquity Until the Present Day by Ivan Lindsay, Vanished Smile by R. A. Scotti, Priceless by Robert K. Wittman with John Shiffman, and Hot Art by Joshua Knelman. Books on aesthetic theory that were most helpful to me include The Power of Images by David Freedberg, Art as Experience by John Dewey, The Aesthetic Brain by Anjan Chatterjee, Pictures & Tears by James Elkins, Experiencing Art by Arthur P. Shimamura, How Art Works by Ellen Winner, The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton, and Collecting: An Unruly Passion by Werner Muensterberger. Other fascinating art-related reads include So Much Longing in So Little Space by Karl Ove Knausgaard, What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy, History of Beauty edited by Umberto Eco, On Ugliness also edited by Umberto Eco, A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar, Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong, Art by Clive Bell, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke, Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton, The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe, and Intentions by Oscar Wilde—which includes the essay “The Critic as Artist,” written in 1891, from which this book’s epigraph was lifted.