Quotes About Artistry

It was a lot more wide open as to what a song was," Ranaldo says. "A song was a lot more about sound and structure than it was about chords and progressions and stuff like that.

Gordon was an artist who simply transferred her highly refined aesthetic skills to rock music, a genre that, as punk proved, required a sensibility more than chops anyway.

Many copies of the Lungs EP had unique inserts, including dollar bills, locks of hair, Bruce Lee photos, used condoms, old photographs, rubber animals, and blood-spattered pieces of paper courtesy of a friend of Albini's who suffered from chronic nose-bleeds.

So they decided to make their own culture

I saw a lot of friends and acquaintances turn their bands which were previously something that they did out of passion into a shot at a small business," Steve Albini told the venerable zine Punk Planet. "In the course of doing it, they ended up hating their bands in a way that I used to hate my job, because it became something they had to do: it was an obligation.

That's where I started to discover that I had an ego," says Barlow. "I just became so involved with writing my own songs and really getting into my own sound of things. Just getting totally self-involved. It was pretty great. So when I played for Dinosaur, I was able to play for Dinosaur—do my thing and be quiet.

You hope to spend your life doing what you love and need and have been fitted by nature or God or your protein-package to do: write, draw, sing, tell stories. But you have to eat.

The John Handy Quintet was on the stereo and the song was "Naima," Handy's 1967 ode to John Coltrane.

It was in Frank Morgan's alto sax that I found the soundtrack of my detective. In his sad but uplifting ballad "Lullaby," written by pianist George Cables, I discovered my detective's anthem. For many years I played that song at the start of each writing day.

Shelly Berg Trio's take on "Blackbird

The mark of a true artist, I believe, is to create something that can live on in another's imagination. Hieronymus Bosch certainly accomplished this.

One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.

Es ist komisch. Es gibt einen Moment, wo man mit seinen Figuren nicht mehr machen kann, was man will, wo die eine Art Eigenleben kriegen und man eigentlich nur noch hinter ihnen hinterherschreiben muss. Und das ist ein gutes Zeichen, wenn dieser Punkt erreicht ist. Weil das heißt, dass die Figur wirklich ein Leben gekriegt hat.

Da Vinci composed what is perhaps the most outstanding employment application letter of all time: "I wish to work miracles.…" —LEONARDO DA VINCI

Imagine, if you will, a watchmaker's workshop. In fact, please imagine one whether you wish to or not.

We listened agog, because she was a wonderful storyteller. She could paint pictures in your head with words, and she could touch the heart of you too.

No poems can please long or live that are written by water drinkers

An artist's job is simply to take the mirror in front of your face and hold it there. It's not to give you any answers. It is simply to take that mirror and point it at you.

For me, music always leads. Lyrics are only about how they sing. It is wonderful if they read well, too. In the very best scenario, sometimes a lyric will pop out with a melody, simultaneously. That's a lovely thing, but you can't rely on that.

The only sin is mediocrity.

One thing that's thematically consistent in 'Sin City' is that all the performances seem to be of the same genre, like we're singing the same song.

I learned a lot about what I do with my craft, how I present my music. A lot of things about him were very much an influence on me and everybody else. Once you get in that fold and you're around it, you get to experience something that I don't think we'll ever see again. There will never be anybody like Frank Sinatra. Ever.

I don't try to copy anybody - I mean, I'm not trying to become another Sinatra. I merely sing the way I speak.

I fell in love with Sinatra when I was very young.