Quotes About Artistry

I am thrilled to be working with Alex Sanchez as the artist on 'Katana.' His work is wildly eclectic, exciting and powerful, yet slyly humorous, which is a perfect match for Katana.

I like the wildness of Buddy Guy.

I feel like I am just an entertainer. It does not matter what form I take to perform and entertain. I think I deserve being called a performer because you don't call Tyler Perry a drag queen. You don't call Will Smith a drag queen and all the other mainstream artists who use the aesthetic of drag to entertain.

If Beethoven could write his 'Eroica Symphony' stone deaf, then William Wyler can do a musical.

We're all Vanilla Ice. Look at Girl Talk and Danger Mouse. Look at William Burroughs, whose cut-up books antedate hip hop sampling by decades. Shakespeare remixed passages of Holinshed's 'Chronicles' in 'Henry VI.' Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture' embeds the French national anthem.

The people I really admire, like William Blake and John Coltrane and Richard Wagner, had these ridiculously full universes that took their entire lives to describe.

I always think Michelle Williams is excellent in her work. And I do love Sofia Coppola. She always creates something so atmospheric. I love Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Andrea Arnold.

My country stuff, it might sound like Hank Williams - that's just the way it is. But I'd rather sound like Hank Williams than Trace Atkins.

I got Jimmy Hall from Wet Willie and he also plays now with Hank Williams Jr.

I love Joy Williams, Lorrie Moore: such great short-story writers.

Tony Williams, Billy Cobham and Lenny White; some of those guys were big influences on me.

When I was very, very young, I decided that I was gonna catalogue my times because that's what other people who I admired did. That's what Bob Dylan did, that's what Frank Sinatra did, Hank Williams did, in very different ways.

Over the years, I've come to realize that writing 'I Ain't Living Long Like This' was an exercise in combined musical influence, mostly that of Hank Williams, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan - artists no one has ever heard of.

Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo's sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey's angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington.

I wouldn't want to cover a Hank Williams song in a country-western way. It doesn't occur to me instinctually to re-create productions. I'm interested in re-creating songs. Putting different clothes on them.

I think John Williams, him and his team, have been incredible orchestrators. By that, I mean how he chooses which instrument plays which note.

Before acting, I was always attracted to words, to literature - be they the words of Williams, Arthur Miller, Shakespeare or Moliere.

I love singers like Hayley Williams from Paramore and Amy Lee from Evanescence.

I love Michelle Williams. I think she's extraordinary. I was such a fan of 'Blue Valentine,' and I heard stories about how Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams worked on that. They lived together for a period of time as rehearsal. From nine in the morning to five at night, living in a space together. The work is really awe-inspiring.

Hank Williams seemed, like, so total to me, so committed to the lyric. He would actually rip the ends of the words off at the, you know - the end of the sentence. It sounded like he'd bite into the word and rip it off.

No other Hank Williams has ever screamed like I have. I guess that's my way of officially being me.

I don't think you can be as successful as an artist like Robbie Williams unless you're thinkin' about yourself 24 hours a day.

I've worked with some of the best of them. Not just directors like Sam Peckinpah and David Lynch, but writers like Sam Shepard and singers like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.

It's like Willie Nelson. You're an artist and you have different styles inside of you.