Quotes About Artistry

Actually, the first songs I learned were imitations of Johnny Mathis.

Most filmmakers, who offer me roles say 'Johnny bhai, come on the sets and do what you feel like.' That isn't the way I like to work.

I could talk for seven hours about Johnny Depp. There's no one like him. He has this amazing ability to watch something and then pick it up and do it, within seconds. He'll hate me for saying this, but I don't care. I'm going to say it anyway. He's Fred Astaire. He's this genius dancer. He says that he can't dance, but he can.

I was into Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, the blues.

Yeah, Patrice Johnson is an incredible actress. She makes it real easy to cry when she cries.

I didn't join a band and didn't get famous to stop playing music.

A lot of people think jugglers defy gravity or do stuff. Well, I kind of, from my childhood and golf and all that, it's a process of joining with forces.

To me, music is no joke and it's not for sale.

I think I was born to be a clown. I just haven't figured out how to bring that side of myself into the world of filmmaking. It's much more comfortable for me to cry on a film set than it is to tell a joke.

The voice has been my joker card that sometimes has played like an ace and sometimes a joker. When you sing the way I sing, it's impossible to get people to talk about anything else.

I think 'Cruella' was getting a weird comparison to 'Joker,' saying we're trying to be like that, but we're not at all.

My favorite moments are the moments everyone cries over. I see people in the audience crying, and I go, 'I did that, too. I don't just do the jokes. I also do the cries.' Jokes and cries, jokes and cries. That's all I'm here for, people.

Every so often I'll hear writers say that there are other writers they would read if for no other reason than to marvel at the skill with which they can put together the sort of sentences that move us to read closely, to disassemble and reassemble them, much the way a mechanic might learn about an engine by taking it apart.

Art is man added to Nature.

People feel the worst film I made was 'Jack.' But to this day, when I get checks from old movies I've made, 'Jack' is one of the biggest ones. No one knows that. If people hate the movie, they hate the movie. I just wanted to work with Robin Williams.

Give form to your vision. Disregard the fact that it appears to entail efforts. Express what you have inside and communicate it everywhere.

Originality is nothing by judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

One man, one film.

I'd write ya spicy songs to slither out of your throat like barracudas.

For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did. And I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I'm not sure where I'm going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn't do it.

Talent is liquified trouble.

A great architect is not made by way of a brain nearly so much as he is made by way of a cultivated, enriched heart.

Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.

Artists are like creatures who swallow themselves. We process our lives into what we make.