Quotes About Artistry

Oh my God, the graduate shows in London are so important! I still remember going to see John Galliano's graduate collection - that was an event I'll never forget.

I really believed that my songs were good enough for the whole world to listen to. I had fans from America or the U.K. who would be like, 'Oh my God, I love your music'.

The second I got on stage, it was like, 'Oh my God! I love this! I love this!'

I've always said that when people start saying, 'Oh my God, why doesn't this woman put down her bagpipes?' then I will. I just don't ever want to become like Cliff Richard.

Let's just cut a live record with three microphones in four days and talk about lizards and aliens. If I had taken that idea to even an independent label, I don't see a label out there that would've said, 'Oh yeah, that sounds great. We know how to market this.'

I don't think an artist should always know why they gravitate toward something or someone. You are just drawn to things, and that's OK.

Arnold and Jamie Lee must have worked over the years with directors that did 50 takes, because I'd get like three takes or so and say, Ok, that's it, we're done.

Rock n' roll is dying because people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world.

I want to figure out what kind of artist I want to be, because with the 'American Idol' process, it just works really fast. The night of the finale, they said, 'OK, here are all the label people that you're gonna work with, this is the album you're gonna make and blah, blah, blah.' So it was a pretty fast process, but it's been cool.

When I sit down to write, I don't think, 'OK, what is the next David O. Russell film I can write, or what is Harvey Weinstein going to want to buy?' Or even, 'What are filmgoers going to want.' I try to think, tell a good story. Just do what you do.

I write my songs and just play them, so there are not a whole lot of fireworks. As long as the music comes first, it's OK to have some fireworks. But not the other way around.

I want to be the best actor that I can be; I want to be working in this business absolutely, and if that means being a movie star, then OK, that's fine. But to me, movie star, celebrity, all that stuff means something very different than being an actor.

My movies are okay, but they're not my specials.

As a filmmaker, you put the film out there, and you just want it to be okay. You don't want to let people down; you don't want to embarrass yourself.

Sure I destroyed my guitar at every concert, but it was okay, because I'd always get a shiny new one the very next day.

When I heard 'Dookie' by Green Day for the first time, it unlocked something in me, like, it's totally okay that I'm a little bit weird because these guys are a little bit weird. It made me want to pick up an instrument and do that.

I cross things out more than I write them. And if I try to sing a line, and I know that it's written incorrectly, I get this weird sort of physical nausea, and my mouth curls up all strange. I guess that's why I always write the words first: because, if everything feels okay, I'm ready to put it to music.

I just don't want to make the same old movies. I'm not interested in it. Directing's hard. It takes up a lot of your life, and I'm not that interested in making the same old film.

I listen to a lot of old music, like Joni Mitchell and David Bowie.

Of course I'm schooled in the old school method: taking what I think the director wants, then reworking it through my own brain and heart.

I was thinking about working with Lady Gaga, not 'Born This Way' but more her old stuff that she did with RedOne from her first album. I think that would be really fun - a cool combination.

Some people love 'Roots;' some people hate 'Roots.' Some people only like the old stuff. Some people want me to play like I did when I was 15. I can't do that all the time. I try to bring a little bit of that into some stuff that I do, but I can't just be that only. There's much more to life than that.

I don't listen to my old stuff very often at all.

I find it incredibly annoying to just go out and sing the old stuff and write songs that sound like the old stuff.