Quotes About Artistry

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.

I try to make sure that, when I'm writing, I don't put too much Cody in it. But I don't want to lose it either.

I do love making films. I want to be a filmmaker that grows and progresses and does keep trying to push myself. I think that's it... and a bit of confidence maybe.

I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.

I don't do a comic book thinking there is a movie. I just want it to be as good a comic book as it can be.

My music is - I don't want to say my main focus, but it's what comes most naturally to me.

Everybody wants to make better music.

Especially with music, people want confidence.

I'll play what you want or I won't play at all.

Teaching writing puts you on the point of a pin in terms of what you want your own writing to be.

I'm my own worst critic and harshest critic and I just want to put honest music out there.

I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.

But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems.

If you start to just aim for what the audience wants to hear, you're already hamstrung because you don't have any freedom.

I gave up that idea of trying to make music that I thought other people would want. I just made music for myself and music for people that I knew.

You have to be driven by the stories that you want to tell. You can't simply be responding, or there won't be any real heart to those stories anymore.

I think Clapton is brilliant. He's the only one who moved me. The only one who made me want to play the guitar.

I've been approached many times by many different people, and most people want to do something that I write and produce, and I'm just not into that.

I love my early movies, but naturalism is an artist's early style. Now I want to deal with feelings, dreams, an acceptance of irrationality.

I am so happy because I want more people to like martial arts movie not just martial arts audience. Even martial arts can be used in comedy, in drama, in horror movies, in different kinds of movies.

Nobody wants to make great albums now because nobody wants to buy them and there's no place to sell them.

New songs are why artists go on the road. That's why I go on the road. It's a three-prong play. Writing: You're intrigued. Recording: It brings it to life. And then you want to share it.

The best music you make is relevant to the culture you are in, the timeframe you are in. I want to keep it as relevant as possible.

I didn't get into music to become a blues musician, or a country musician. I'm a singer-songwrit er. In my book that means I get to do whatever I want.