Quotes About Artistry

If a musician wants to become a fine artist, he must first become a finer person.

The Master Thinker is an artist and is careful to paint only the divine designs upon the canvas of his mind; and he paints these pictures with masterly strokes of power and decision, having perfect faith that there is no power to mar their perfection and that they shall manifest in his life the ideal made real.

My solo album is dead and buried. We had the funeral. It was sad and I cried a lot but it made such a beautiful corpse that we had an open casket.

A lot of people these days are not music lovers - they just want to be famous which is a very different thing to what I grew up believing in.

I read what I write over and over and make corrections and improvements, until I reach the conclusion that the material deserves to stand on its own

Bleak House is just the most astounding piece of work. There's huge, visionary poetry in it.

The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery.

If I cannot sing a work, I cannot conduct it.

It is said that in one rehearsal he was unsatisfied with the performance of a female cello soloist, and so said to her "Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands, and all you can do is scratch it!".

(To a lady cellist) Madame, you have between your legs the most beautiful instrument known to man, and all you can do is scratch it !

Art is the perfection of nature.

My lute, awake! perform the lastLabor that thou and I shall waste,And end that I have now begun;For when this song is sung and past,My lute, be still, for I have done.

Artists are cannibals. We consume other artists, and they become part of us—flesh and bone—only to be spewed out again in our own works.

I love making movies. I love writing. I love acting. I love it, and I feel really blessed to be able to actually make a living with something I love doing.

I'd love to write a country album with Adele.

I think what I listen to now is what I listened to as a kid which is kind of black American soul. I love soul music.

A lot of people wanted to try to make me the white Nicki Minaj. That's not what I'm trying to do. I love 'hood' music, but my talent is as a singer.

I love doing short films because they're much more intimate and there's far less waiting around than on the bigger films.

I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.

Being onstage is a way of harnessing your vulnerability and using the adrenaline to be creative. It's a very vulnerable place to be - technically, emotionally, and physically - but I love it.

I love to write quartets. One could say that this is a mania.

I love being a part of storytelling, so whether I'm getting to do that on Survivor, or do it through kids' adventure books, or directing a movie, it's all sort of the same: Once Upon a Time...

I love the fact that I can go out there on stage with a guitar and sing a song that means something to somebody.

I would hate to make music and people love me for something that isn't me.