Creativity Quote by Jack Levine

“Nice” lands here like a smirk: Levine turns political dissent into a physical nuisance, something lodged and unavoidable. The line isn’t romantic about opposition as noble suffering. It’s opposition as sport, as appetite, as strategy. A “bone in somebody’s throat” isn’t an argument you politely consider; it’s a problem you can’t swallow, a constant irritation that hijacks attention. Levine’s intent feels less like preaching and more like savoring the role of the unassimilable.

That posture tracks with an artist who made his name skewering American power with caricature and crowded, satirical scenes. Levine came up in the Depression and matured through the era of bosses, wars, and cold-war conformity. For a politically alert figurative painter, being “in the opposition” wasn’t a think-piece identity; it was a practical position in an art world and a country that often preferred its culture either decorative or obedient. The subtext: if you’re doing your job, someone in charge should be choking a little.

The metaphor also reveals a canny understanding of how institutions metabolize critique. A critic who can be “digested” becomes harmless: bought, celebrated, turned into style. A bone resists that. It’s small but dangerous, the kind of obstruction that forces a pause. Levine’s line defends the artist-as-irritant, not as healer: the pleasure isn’t cruelty for its own sake, but the satisfaction of proving you can’t be easily consumed.