Quotes About Artistry

It is most certainly a good thing that the world knows only the beautiful opus but not its origins, not the conditions of its creation; for if people knew the sources of the artist's inspiration, that knowledge would often confuse them, alarm them, and thereby destroy the effects of excellence. strange hours! strangely enervating labor! bizarrely fertile intercourse of the mind with a body!

Genius is a form of the life force that is deeply versed in illness, that both draws creatively from it and creates through it.

It is as well that the world knows only a fine piece of work and not also its origins, the conditions under which it came into being; for knowledge of the sources of an artist's inspiration would often confuse readers and shock them, and the excellence of the writing would be of no avail.

It is probably better that the world knows only the result, not the conditions under which it was achieved; because knowledge of the artist's sources of inspiration might bewilder them, drive them away and in that way nullify the effect of the excellent work.

He worked, not like a man who works that he may live; but as one who is bent on doing nothing but work; having no regard for himself as a human being but only as a creator; moving about grey and unobtrusive among his fellows like an actor without his make-up, who counts for nothing as soon as he stops representing something else.

closing movement of the Cello Sonata in D, Op.

Perfectionism, of course, was something which even as a young man he had come to see as the innermost essence of talent.

Art enables us to find ourselves and loose ourselves at the same time.

They were in the world and not of it--not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists. The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it.

True pornography is given us by vastly patient professionals.

Making Final Fantasy X, anyway, look like an Etch A Sketch.

It is the only life I care about—to write, to go out occasionally and 'lose myself' looking and hearing and then to come back and write again. At any rate that's the life I've chosen.

but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.

To be alive and to be a 'writer' is enough.

he understands that taking more pains to create something can add to the sheer pleasure of offering it up to the universe.

I'm an exceptional artist. Trapped in the body of man with no musical

There's a point at which when I start to know a man well--this isn't true of women--I wonder whether there's something in him that's evil. Something that's pure and can't be touched. This quality of evil may be related to the quality of artistry, for an artist has the same characteristics.

Roses are red, violets are blue. Extend only one, but implement two.

In reply to the often asked question why he performs dressed as a woman, Kazuo has repeatedly stated: "My intention in dressing as a woman onstage has never been to become a female impersonator, or to transform myself into a woman. Rather, I want to trace my life back to its most distant origins. More so than anything else, I long to return to where I've come from.

If somebody writes a great poem, people don't run around applauding the pencil, saying 'Oh, what a great pencil'...I'm a pencil in God's hands.

To make a rock'n'roll record, technology is the least important thing.

Great songs write themselves. You're just being led by the nose, or the ears. The skill is not to interfere with it too much. Ignore intelligence, ignore everything; just follow it where it takes you.

And you listen to some of that meticulous Mozart stuff and Vivaldi and you realize that they knew that too. They knew when to leave one note just hanging up there where it illegally belongs and let it dangle in the wind and turn a dead body into a living beauty.

If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.