Artist Quotes

The hallmark of the minor artist is to be obsessed with style as an end in itself.

I just want to be written about as a normal artist.

The Artist," an ancient sage had once said, "is always sitting on the doorsteps of the rich.

I don't think I ever really decided I was an artist. I went to college to learn how to think and look at art. In the end, I developed a more sophisticated misunderstanding of art.

The damnable thing about bad art is that the insincerity which lies at its roots is not perceived by the artist himself.

As refined fare serves a hungry man as well as and no better than coarser food, the more pretentious artist will not dream of inviting the hungry man to his meal.

As an artist, you're always somewhat obscure. We're not talking Hollywood.

The marathon is an art; the marathoner is an artist.

Back in the 60s, San Francisco artists lived in communes.

When you actually meet the devil and he offers you a deal most artists eventually negotiate.

An artist gives. Gives visually, gives through courses, or with free advice, through generosity of spirit and through a need to share.

I listen to other artists, cuz its like every artist wanna hear something that they never heard before.

The greatest artist has no conception which a single block of white marble does not potentially contain within its mass, but only a hand obedient to the mind can penetrate to this image.

I don't think any collector knows his true motivation.

The artist should be intoxicated with the idea of the thing he wants to express.

I want to invest and have my own record label and artists. I want to have a business where my kids, kids, kids will still have something going on long after I'm gone.

I just started writing and writing for people. And then, like I guess after (a) year of getting some placements, I kinda got a shot to be an artist. Long story short I think, yeah.

In college, I thought I wanted to be solely an artist, and then when I got here, to college, I was like, "Okay, well I want to be a songwriter," 'cause it was like close to Nashville.

The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before he is defeated.

The artist is today and has been for many years, despite his absence of merit, simply a spoiled child. So many honors, so much money bestowed on men without souls and without education.

You'd have to be completely crazy not to be influenced by and take from other artists. It's completely impossible not to.

So I am happy with what I did. And I tell you something, when an artist does something, he doesn't have at the beginning, big goals and objectives, you do the thing because you love it.

An age is best revealed by its artists of the second rank.

An artist must eat sparingly and give up a normal way of life.

You have a right to your opinion about the work that you're doing. An artist is as equally important as the director. If you believe that, you can work in any circumstances.

The idea of changing or improving the world is alien to me and seems ludicrous. Society functions, and always has, without the artist. No artist has ever changed anything for better or worse.

Art moves. Hence its civilizing power.

I don't like to treat a piece of clothing like an object of art because I don't consider myself an artist. I'm a designer.

In the 2000s, I became an artist. I started preserving and educating. I became more obsessed with making iPod playlists for people.

It's funny, I can see the science in how music is made with other artists, but it's hard for me to dissect my own thing.

I always work out of uncertainty but when a painting's finished it becomes a fixed idea, apparently a final statement. In time though, uncertainty returns.. your thought process goes on.

No amount of technical knowledge and competence is, of itself, sufficient to make a craftperson into an artist. That requires caring - passionate caring about ultimate things.

You cannot deny your origins: I love Kirchner more than Matisse, although Matisse was a greater artist. That isn't to do with nationality. It's a stronger feeling.

The work of an artist who attempts lovingly to embrace reality, will ring false, will degenerate into kitsch.

I was poking fun at myself most of all.

The best martial artist doesn't win fights, but avoids fights. Martial arts is a way of gaining basic self-mastery of your mind, body and emotions. It can also be very useful in combat situations.

[Documentary photography] is unwittingly literary, because it is nothing other than an observation of contemporary life apprehended at the right moment by an artist capable of seizing it. (1928)

If you've got a deadline and you're an artist, you've just got to be on the case - nothing else can come in the way, or you won't make good work... the people around you just have to understand.

There are two people that probably influenced me more than anybody out of all the artists out here: that's Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson.

The artist should have a powerful will. He should be powerfully possessed by one idea

All artists are self-sacrificing human beings, and to become an artist is nothing but to devote oneself to the subterranean gods.

Like most artists, I live out of a suitcase.

It is ridiculous to say that art has nothing to do with morality. What is true is that the artist's business is not that of the policeman.

I think that an artist is a bit like a computer. He receives information from the world around him and from his past and from his own experiences. And it all goes into the brain.

The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.

The true artist can only labor con amore.

If the artist's will is not strong he will see all kinds of unessential things.

It seems to me like a perversion of talent for an artist of any kind to further the corporate structure of America or the personal interests of the morons and thieves who run it.

I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally.

Yeah, the industry has always been both the enemy and the best friend of the artist. They need each other. That's the bottom line.