Quotes About Artistry

Jean Hanff Korelitz

All he had ever wanted was to tell—in the best possible words, arranged in the best possible order—the stories inside him.

Art was as much in the activity as in the results. Works of art were not just the finished product, but the thought, the action, the process that created them.

All great art is abstract.

Kissel worked in Idleness the way other artists worked in clay or marble.

The artist on art. How do you get your ideas for stories Mr. Valentine? Well, I simply exploit everything I come into contact with. One ended, of course, by losing all spontaneity. You saw people as characters, sunsets as an excuse for similes -.

I could spend whole days at Cinecittà. There, I am the greatest director of all time. On the town side, I reshoot the close-ups for Touch of Evil. Down at the beach, I rework the dolly shots for Stagecoach, and offshore I re-create the storm rocking the smugglers of Moonfleet.

Il est facile de choisir les rideaux les plus jolis, les meubles les plus parfaits, de faire les seuls mouvements d'appareil possibles, si l'on sait d'avance que J'on est doué pour ça. De la part d'un artiste, trop bien se connaître, c'est un peu céder à la facilité. Ce qui est difficile, au contraire, c'est d'avancer en terre inconnue, de reconnaître le danger, de prendre des risques, d'avoir peur.

She spoke with the air of the artist, playing out each nuance until it wasn't a nuance anymore.

I believe in writing somewhat quickly, getting the story down; it can be bad, it can be a mess, but the key thing is to get it down.

With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it's hard to get up the courage to say, Can I sing this part, or, I want to play guitar. I feel like I have more courage to do that.

It's like what Miles Davis says: "Don't worry about mistakes, there aren't any.

When all of this music sounds like you know what you want to say, then it will have been of all worth, ever. You will be something complete unto yourself, present and unique.

I think about my work every minute of the day.

I became a songwriter not when I composed that perfect couplet, or experienced the right amount of pain. It's when I realized that whatever I wrote, even if it meant gutting myself in front of strangers, letting all those raw emotions come flooding out, making a fool of myself with my own words, was exactly what I always wanted to do with my life.

That's not the same sound someone else is going to make. We discount that as something we're supposed to measure against other people's imaginations, and that's a squandered gift.

It's just a matter of telling yourself that your creation is OK, no matter what it is.

Being willing to sound bad is one of the most important pieces of advice that I can give you. Writing a song will teach you that it's OK to fail. And more than that, that it's actually good to fail, and that you can come to appreciate the gifts of failure.

take the final necessary steps—arranging and recording—needed to dress my songs up enough to send them out into the world.

Art cannot be modern. Art is primordially eternal.

So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?

What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?

If you're alive, you're a creative person.

A good-enough novel violently written now is better than a perfect novel meticulously written never.