Quotes About Creativity

Acting is always the priority and I love doing what I do, but I'm also very interested in directing and writing and getting a hand in every part of the movie making process.

My work is a self-portrait of my mind, a prism of my convictions.

I don't have to act for work anymore; I can act for passion. That's freeing, but it's also a prison of its own. When you can do anything you want, you're really responsible to do something great. And that's scary.

There were no artists in Ossining, which was the home of Sing Sing prison. Most of the parents of the guys I knew were guards there.

I wrote a lot of lyrics in prison, but they'd all be like, 'Crawls upon the shoulders, hatred in the eyes.' I wrote about 50 songs in there that were all about jail. I've come out and thought, 'I've only served eight weeks; I can't really write a concept album about jail.'

When we first started to write our first movie, 'You Are Going To Prison,' we wanted it to be crazy and unique, brand new, our voice, not like anything that'd ever been before. It took us about a year to write our first script.

You shouldn't be a prisoner of your own ideas.

Rock 'n' roll was two pegs below being a prisoner of war back then.

I had no idea what those cords were in the bridge of 'Prisoner In Disguise' when I wrote them. I had to go over to Don Gorman, the piano player, and ask what in the world I was playing.

The thing I realized about final cut is it's the power of the best cut. I didn't have final cut on 'Prisoners,' but what you saw is the best cut. 'Sicario' is a directors' cut. 'Arrival' is a directors' cut.

I usually work in a room which is totally cluttered with my mess, and there's stuff everywhere, and it's kind of chaotic because I am a very messy person. I could totally write in a pristine environment, but it would mean I would have to be at someone else's house.

For me, I would prefer to not have my face on the album cover. I don't mind being in the public, but it's just not really my personality, and it's not really why I'm into this. I like making art, and that's it. I don't really want to be a celebrity, seriously. I like my privacy.

I love to tell stories, but the making is less comfortable. I like to be private, and being in the middle of a film crew with the least amount of privacy is the discomfort of shooting a movie. For me, the editing is the great moment when I can bring back ideas and realize the movie for the last time before I hand it to the audience.

I think I probably would have enjoyed to keep my own private pain out of my work. But I was changed by my audience who said your private pain which you have unwittingly shown us in your early songs is also ours.

I'd like to go back to poetry again. I really, really revere good poetry. It's been my private discipline.

In order for me to be successful... In order to be a great artist - musician, actor, painter, whatever - you must be able to be private in public at all times. That is what we do.

I never wanted to dilute my private passion for the art by airing and arguing it in public.

I went to a private arts school. We had to wear cloaks.

My life and my work are very interlocked. That's partly why I like to keep my private life private.

I wish I could write more make-believe. It's a lot easier to write about hard times and when things are going wrong. But I've never been a private person.

My experiences in the military, the private sector, and as a congressional staffer were at times almost enough to drive me crazy. Writing offered the all-too-often-cited creative outlet.

I always did music privately as a hobby, I think partly because I was nervous to do it in front of other people.

For me, in my mind personally and privately, there are no limits to comedy.

We were allowed to make mistakes. I mean that is a real privilege, to be able to go your own way, find your voice, just have a support system that allows you to do all that.