Artist quotes
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"I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects. That's different from prescribing a way in which a writer should write."
"I pay tribute to the writing always. The writer is a creative artist and the director is an interpretive artist and the actors are interpretive. You take zero and make it into something, that's always amazing to me."
"A defining moment in my life was my first actual VMA performance… That was the first time in my head I said I made it. Everybody knows who you are now. At that point everything in my life was flawless… I was just overwhelmed, I was happy, I was successful as an artist. I think I was in cruise control – like a little bit of bliss."
"Anybody auditions for X-Factor it's because they want to be famous, not because they are artists."
"Most of the artists I know are crazy in one way or another. I think that's why you get into it. You're in pursuit of a certain sort of peace that's very, very, very difficult to come by."
"If you're an artist, you try to keep an ear to the ground and an ear to your heart."
"It's not the struggle that makes us artists, but Art that makes us struggle."
"Modern conquerors can kill, but do not seem to be able to create. Artists know how to create but cannot really kill. Murderers are only very exceptionally found among artists."
"Success gave me confidence as an artist. And now I'm able to do what I want without anybody thinking it's dumb."
"I never understood why when you died, you didn't just vanish, everything could just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn't be there. I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say 'figment.'"
"My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person."
"It would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor's finger."
"For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the well is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function."
"Autism doesn't have to define a person. Artists with autism are like anyone else: They define themselves through hard work and individuality."
"To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all."
"Every man who is not an artist is a traitor to his own nature."
"Lives in eternity's sun rise."
"[Stanley] Kubrick was a great artist and a perfectionist. He always wanted the exact right thing. He did a million takes. Everything had to be perfect. I'm an imperfectionist. I don't really care that much about the work. I write quickly. I'm careless. I shoot carelessly."
"I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth."
"A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest."
