Such meeting reveal that which we all darkly suspect about those whose art we have loved: that they are unlikely to be whatever it is we imagine them to be.

Usually, I cut songs by other people that are artists that I already love.

It’s impossible for a creative artist to be either a Puritan or a Fascist, because both are a negation of the creative urge. The only things a creative artist can be opposed to are ugliness...

Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.

The sooner you finish procrastinating, the sooner you can get back to your art.

How rich art is; if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never without food for thought or truly lonely, never alone.

Some artists are normal people who just happen to make things because we can’t figure out how in the hell to communicate with people.

I have a long-standing history of respecting artists’ wishes.

For some reason I’ve been labeled that and it’s fine, but there are a lot of other artists that sing real traditional stuff, so I don’t know why they picked me. That’s what I’ve always...

Miss Mapp moved towards the screen.”What a delicious big screen,” she said.”Yes, but don’t go behind it, Mapp,” said Irene, “or you’ll see my model undressing.”Miss Mapp retreated from it precipitately, as from a wasp’s...

From recovery to rags and rags to recovery symbolizes art – a perfect compilation of human imperfections.

We’re all artists. It’s just most people keep their inner artist locked behind their rib cage.

I hate artists who are not of their time.

An artist’s work never leads anywhere except to the unknown.

B-but, Mr Jimson, I w-want to be an artist.”Of course you do,’ I said, ‘everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chickenpox. Go home and go to...

Before, I could only guess oh who I was. Now, thanks to my art, I know who I am.

The more one suffered and lived, the more one had known of joy and grief, the deeper the response must be if an artist were great enough to summon it.

I wonder if only artists can feel peace like this—such a gentle, inconspicuous peace that an ordinary person might not even notice.

But sometimes, talent isn’t worth shit. There are tons of talentless people out there making zillions of dollars. And unfortunately, an equal number of brilliant artists whose name and voices you’ll never hear. – Paul...

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist;...

What does one prefer? An art that struggles to change the social contract, but fails? Or one that seeks to please and amuse, and succeeds?

One thing more, Leon. You say that life is meaningless, but I believe it’s life that’s sacred. I talk about art and sex because they’re the most intense life experiences I know, so I feel...

What I say is misdirection, what you see is an illusion and what results is magic.

Repetita iuvant. Italy, a land of great saints, poets, sailors, artists, statesmen, businessmen, lawyers, intellectuals, professors, journalists, whores, gangsters, religious parasites and dickheads.

It’s freezing up here. What did you use to keep warm?””Indignation,” said Michelangelo. “Best fuel I know. Never burns out.

My time in Weimar Berlin was the most elegant in my life. I would have parties for a hundred people – writers, scientists, artists.

You sensed that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one, you felt that you were destined for other things but you had no idea how to achieve them and in your...

If you participate in life, you don’t see it clearly: you suffer from it too much or enjoy it too much. The artist, to my way of thinking, is a monstrosity, something outside nature. All...

It’s not an artist’s job to change people or save the world.

Possible reality [is obtained] by slightly bending physical and chemical laws.

Some people are really drawn to technology and I liken them to artists.

I will always know the glory of the beautiful and rare, as they will know security from labour and prayer. As they will hear the laughter of the children they gave life, I will know...

Bare lists of words are found suggestive to an imaginative and excited mind.

. . . there were masses of pictures she had not seen; however, Lily Briscoe reflected, perhaps it was better not to see pictures: they only made one hopelessly discontented with one’s own work.

What they, in their innocence, cannot comprehend is that a properly constituted, healthy, decent man never writes, acts, or composes.

Artists need to express.

Magic is logic.

… an artist should paint from the heart, and not always what people expect. Predictability often leads to the dullest work, in my opinion, and we have been bored stiff long enough I think.

Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.

In the UK and the US especially you’ve got a lot of throwaway artists who have their 40 million dancers and they do their show. There’s many artists who would not do a live show...

Just as Renaissance artists provided narratives for the era they lived in, so do I. I’m always looking beyond the surface. I’ve done that ever since I first picked up a camera.

The uniqueness of different colours represents the uniqueness of individuals!

And in uttering thatExcellently executed truthYou become an artist too

But I also think it’s up to the fan base to call in the radio stations and demand that the more mature artists be played as well.

He said, one has to learn that painting well – in the academic and technical sense – comes right at the bottom of the list. I mean, you’ve got that ability. So have thousands.

Are artists and writers the only people entitled to lives of their own?

I do believe most curators – maybe I’m only speaking for myself here – want to be artists on some level. Curators must have an innate interest in what an artist makes. And they certainly...

I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.

Here is to all the brilliant minds that love deeply, for they write the stories that make us dream of true love. Here is to all the visionaries that create a miracle when others give...

A lot of artists have really been supportive over the years.