Artist Quotes

The greatest artists always come round to simplicity.

Art imitates Nature in this; not to dare is to dwindle.

When I came back to California in the early '60s I was hanging out with Jimmy Bowen, Phil Spector, and I wanted to be a record producer and work with other artists.

New songs are why artists go on the road. That's why I go on the road. It's a three-prong play. Writing: You're intrigued. Recording: It brings it to life. And then you want to share it.

My life is pretty well at peace, and the profession is more of an avocation. It's a calling, if you like, rather than a job. I do what I feel impelled to do, as an artist would.

The function of artists is "the mythologization of the world."

Both the artist and the lover know that perfection is not loveable. It is the clumsiness of a fault that makes a person lovable.

Art is a celebration of life, intended by the artist to put the spectator in touch with the divine.

As an artist, you want to stretch. That's the only way you're going to grow. If I stay inside my comfort zone, do roles that I've done before, then I'm never going to get better as an actress.

An artist's career doesn't happen in the cycle of one week of news. An artist's career happens in a lifetime, and if you're a true artist you're willing to die for what you believe in.

Artists have a right to be modest and a duty to be vain.

An artist should make concessions to the listener. That is why Bruckner dedicated one of his symphonies to the Good Lord.

There's nothing shocking inherently about that, given that so much of the way that artists are taught is by copying old master paintings.

Is it the responsibility of the colored artist or the ethnic artist to create works that are designed to exist in opposition to a certain political structure?

I want to be the kind of artist who keeps pushing on every album. I don't want to settle on a sound.

I think as an artist you evoke feeling and change and through that you send a message.

There is a strong feeling in the Middle West that the artist is not pulling his own weight no matter how hard he may work, that the other people are doing the real stuff.

Nobody needs an Artist, but everyone needs ART.

If you're an artist, you've got to prove it.

You think you're an artist; prove it

I see artists as a great battalion moving through paint, words, music towards cosmological interpretation.

All artists today are expected to cultivate a little fashionable unhappiness.

I like to be in the zone. I like being in the studio with the artists, with the producers, with the musicians, feeling it, and going there. I feel like I have a lot of content to start writing about.

A true artist is driven by the never-ending desire to create.

Bruce Lee only played himself. Chuck Norris is a martial artist that does acting. I want to be an actor that does martial arts.

I have always thought of myself as a performer first and way down the line as a recording artist.

Everyone is here on earth as an artist; to tell his particular story or sing her irreplaceable song; to leave a unique creative signature.

It should be not only a synergy, but a complicity between the viewer and the artist, and so I'm wide open to that.

In the business of portrait photography, one must combine the artist and the craftsman.

We do live, all of us, on many different levels, and for most artists the world of imagination is more real than the world of the kitchen sink.

My sister is an artist and an interior designer. She went to high school for art. I went to high school for music.

I want to be an artist, not an erotic freak. I don’t want to be sold to the public as a celluloid aphrodisiac.

There's nothing more tragic than artists from the 70s still doing art from the 70s.

Artists should never think of themselves as an idol. Fame is a side effect of one's work.

I actually quite like promo, which is quite odd for an artist, but recording's not the easiest thing.

until you learn that an artist cannot afford to scorn any phase of life that is human, you will never do great work.

I'm always asking friends what new music they're into, and I love showing people new talented artists.

I firmly believe artists should be paid for what they create.

I would like to be known as an artist. Whether that be music, acting, sketching, cooking, whatever. Im interested in all of those things.

The criminal, like the artist, is a social explorer.

As an artist, you just want to keep creating, keep finding a place that really inspires you that feels fresh and new and keep it exciting.

If I've grown as an artist, it will be represented in the art. There's no need to explain it.

With the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth... the critic

Someone told me there was a publisher that could find a good home for my songs, but I didn't want to give up my pursuit of a career in the business as an artist

A lot of artists talk about getting out of their comfort zones and being the most proud of their newest album. But it is true for me. I rethought a lot of what I do.

I have found, and most artists are probably this way, that [when] you're working on some kind of idea, the idea makes demands.

I'm not creating an enigma or leaving mystery, I'm just respecting myself enough as an artist to give myself room to grow and not to be devoured all in one go.

Artists now decline to go to bed with beauty, fearing they'll wake up with kitsch.

Every artist who drew Batman after creator Bob Kane was a better artist than Kane [...].

I think that's the hardest part for an artist is finding their voice and learning how to write, finding what they have to say that is unique.