Quotes About Artistry

Technically, the song's a mess. It follows no known conventional nor commercial formula. It is just a string of dreams, flashbacks, flash-forwards, vignettes, completely disjointed ideas. It changes sequence, color, tone, tempo, all for

The finest achievements are those of the pen...to me God the Father is a writer.

What he, the writer, is asking is impossible. Why should he expect this extraordinary being, the perfect critic (who does occasionally exist), why should there be anyone else who comprehends what he is trying to do? After all, there is only one person spinning that particular cocoon, only one person whose business it is to spin it.

Becoming me was the greatest creative project of my life.

For me personally, though, the killer was published in Rolling Stone: "Levon Helm is the only drummer that can make you cry.

The selective instinct of the artist tells him when his language should be homely, and when it should be more elevated; and it is precisely in the imperceptible blending of the plain with the ornate that a great writer is distinguished. He uses the simplest phrases without triviality, and the grandest without a suggestion of grandiloquence.

The intensity of vision in the artist and of vividness in his creations are the sole tests of his imaginative power.

An essential portion of any artist's labor is not creation so much as invocation.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

I've never really had the urge to make an English album.

The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.

I could write songs as bad as Wham's if I really felt the urge to, but what's the point?

The urge to act became the overriding force in my life. It thrilled me. There's a moment with acting when you're in the groove, and you and what you're trying to do are seamlessly one. That happens sometimes, and I'm really happy it can happen to me.

For me to get up and feel the urge to go to the set and all that, I have to feel there is something tremendously vibrating to achieve there. I need to lose sometimes a consciousness of the person and the reality in order to be happy to come back into the reality and happier to live it for this cause, to be an artist in this life.

I can't design anything unless I'm excited by it, meaning I have an urge to wear it.

I urge younger artists to know that you don't have to be anything you don't want. You can do whatever's comfortable for you. From the music I make, to the things I do in my life, I'm true to my R&B core. I have the capability to make pop records and crossover, but that's not my aim.

I don't have any sense or urgency about any of my writing, actually. I don't think mankind will be damaged if I don't put out a new album or a new book.

I feel like every record I've ever made, on some level, is urgent.

It's very important that young artists push boundaries, because sometimes you have this urge to do something - like the impulsive and dangerous urges I had as a child - and if you don't follow through with it you might miss out on a developmental experience.

First and foremost, I make music to satisfy my creative urges, but at the same time, I know my fans are waiting, so they're the ones that push me to keep going.

Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see.

I stopped performing because I don't have the temperament of a performer. You have to want to do the same thing over and over again. Once I got it right, I didn't want to do it again. I always use the analogy of a novelist who has to read his novel in public night after night. I just didn't want to do it.

I appreciate people who try and use language in an interesting way.

A good use for me is to let me go away with my sewing machine and come back with some really new stuff.