The Steppenwolf

No, not the band who sung 'Born to be Wild' in Easy Rider. The book, by Herman Hesse. Here's an excerpt. I like his transcendental description of art.

"And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment's happiness is flung so high and dazzlingly over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment. Thus, like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all those who see it as something eternal and as their own dream of happiness."