Quotes About Artistry

My only verse I remember really working on was 'Mixtape,' and I took 45 minutes on that because I wanted it to be tight.

You know for some strange reason I like to write the verse first. I mean I know the majority of people do the chorus first and when I think about it, I guess it does make more sense to do the chorus first, but I just like to write the verses first, I don't know why.

Dixie Chicks surprised me with a beautiful three-part harmony version of 'I'll Take Care of You.' And Don Henley's performance of 'The Heart of the Matter' still just slays me every time I hear it.

Do not let yourself get in your own way. Don't judge yourself and knock yourself down. There is enough of that out there already. Remember: you are an artist, and you bring something special to this craft. Take in notes and criticism, but don't let them define you. Don't try to become a watered down version of yourself.

I like to blur the line between remix and cover version and new song.

George Benson's 'This Masquerade' is my favorite version of Leon Russell's blue gem.

A rap dude has his rap persona, his hyper version of himself. Do you know Method Man's real name? Or Elton John, Marylin Monroe? You make up this character. That's kind of what we have done with Die Antwoord, playing with characters.

I made a clean version of 'Enter the Ninja' that my mom can listen to.

I didn't want to make a caricature version of Elektra.

Well, I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years. And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.

So I did 'Something Happened on the Way to Heaven' and the original version is a ballad. The original Phil record is uptempo but we slowed it down and made it a ballad.

writing is performance.

Art was creating something new, not mimicking something already in existence. What

Loneliness is an art form

I went to the CD player, choosing some soft and soothing soprano sax, courtesy of the late Art Porter.

pencil hadn't stopped scribbling

Three times a day Petrovich showed up at the nurse's office for his injections, always using the hypodermic needle himself like the most craven of junkies, though after shooting up he would play the concert piano in the auditorium with astounding artistry, as though insulin were the elixir of genius.

Hearing a beautiful music in her head, she hadn't listened to anything anyone else was saying.

If a writer writes poems and short stories and novels, but nobody ever reads them, is she really a writer?

I should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got sufficient imagination

The thing is, all my heroes were junkies. Lenny Bruce, Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Miles Davis, Hubert Selby, Jr... These guys were cool. They were committed. They would not have been caught dead doing an ALF episode.

Good wood often warps if no craftsman uses it.

The main point then is that an actor should not try to acquire any kind of recipe or build up a box of tricks. This is no place for collecting all sorts of means of expression.

The decision to carve out time and attention to make your work is a breathtaking act of ego. You're saying, "I don't care what everyone else thinks I should be doing with my time. I know this is what I need to do." If