Quotes About Artistry

Due to the sweeping time frame and the voices moving back and forth, the outline for 'The Invention of Wings' was the strangest one I've ever done. I created six large, separate outlines, one for each part of the book, and hung them around my study.

How much closer can I get to the common ear, the mainstream, and how much it can still be from this other world, this other place? That's the line I keep trying to tread but have my wings extend more on both sides.

My fondest memories are of being hidden away in Scotland or Spain writing and working on songs for Wings.

I don't really mind not being a part of a film - because if there is no part for me, I will never force myself upon a film. I feel like it's just a distraction. If it is not organically incorporated into the story, it just feels like a stupid appearance, like a sort of wink. I hate that.

People are always surprised to find this out, but the songs that we write, such as 'Winner of a Losing Game' and things like that, tend to be more country than the other stuff that we cut from outside writers.

It's wonderful and reassuring to see 'Hichki' doing so well. When I got to know the subject and signed the film, I knew that we were working on an important and sensitive subject. I knew that we had a winner at hand. But as artists, we are always a little anxious about our work, that's just in our DNA, I guess.

The name Minted speaks to the freshness of our design - the fact that we are receiving thousands of new designs each week and selling freshly minted winners from our design competitions.

I never thought of having platinum albums and winning awards. I just wanted to write songs and sing when I started out in the music business.

I've been a big believer in musicians turned actor, going back to Sinatra winning the Oscar for 'From Here To Eternity.' David Bowie in 'Man Who Fell to Earth,' Kris Kristofferson's been great in a bunch of films. Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, I thought was great in 'Precious.'

Winning the Pritzker assures a flood of work in one's seventies and eighties, jobs necessarily carried out by assistants as the demands of modern-day cultural stardom and the inevitable waning of physical capacities prevent many architects from attaining the transcendent final phase more easily achieved by artists in other mediums.

I write a lot of my music, but not all of it. I have always subscribed to the 'best song wins' theory when making an album.

Hermes scarf designers can be found in places from Poland to Japan, not to mention the U.S. post-office sorting room in Waco, Texas. Kermit Oliver, a longtime postal employee, has designed more than a dozen Hermes scarves.

I like, for instance, 'Serpico.' I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could - I could embody him. I could, you know, I could work and get to know him and have him help me with the text, the script and become him. It's almost like a painter having a model to become.

I like to read and dream and create music that is based on the imagery of text. If you have the combination of a great book and a great filmmaker, what could be better for the composer?

Jack Nicholson is a textbook actor who's very intuitive. He is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real.

The guitar shouldn't be a main instrument, it should be a texture. It shouldn't be important whether it's there or not. If it's important to you whether a guitar is there or not, you're weird.

It's fun to use all of my range; there are so many different colors and textures that come out, revealing different parts of my voice. I know what my voice is capable of, and I try to fit it to each song, evoke a mood.

I just don't see myself as a songwriter or a country singer or any of those things anymore. It's more trying to express ideas and emotional textures.

I guess I get bored easily, and thank God. I don't want to all my life pound only the same key, although some artists do it very effectively. I'm not trying to denigrate anybody.

I haven't made a career off my looks, thank God, but hopefully how I've moved people emotionally, the directors I've been able to work with, and the stories I've been a part of.

Thank God for my imagination. For my abilities to mimic.

I don't worry about whether I'm making a masterpiece, because I know that if you get just one of those in a lifetime, you should get down on your knees and say 'Thank you!'

He was an original, an innovator, and his influence will forever live on in our culture. Whether they know it or not, all DJs have been influenced by him. Thank you, DJ AM.

I'm thankful I am able to continue to share the joy and the inspiration tap brings.