Quotes About Art

My mom's an art teacher, so I always had music in the house. She always had records, and I was mesmerized by the mechanics of how a turntable works.

'Turtle' is one of our favorite ballad songs that we've written. It is very quiet but also so bright.

Prison is no hardship, really. I'm in the art room as an assistant to the tutor, and basically, I'm doing what I like.

I went to public and state schools - not at the same time. I did my art foundation course at Harrogate College of Arts. This brilliant tutor suggested I apply to Central Saint Martins. I adored it.

If you want to be an actor, you must have total, ruthless commitment to your art. Don't be ambitious for fame or TV or movies. Art is a jealous mistress and will brook no competitors. Study all the time. Never stop reading. Never stop learning speeches. It will fill you up - define and refine you.

I would love to have my own show, and whatever movies come up, that would be fun to do too. But I love TV, and I love the art of the half-hour sitcom.

I think whatever art form you're in, whether TV, film or theater, you should know the history of who came before you and how the art form has changed or not changed and to learn from the greats.

Reality TV is flat with the anti-cultural imperatives of business: cheap to make, it does ideological work even when it is not giving guru status to dull business people. It fits in with capitalism's anti-mythic myth: the idea that we have liberated ourselves from the dangerous illusions allegedly propagated by art and politics.

At 18, I stood in the Louvre in front of the paintings that TV had first shown me.

Artwork, films, TV - it's always informed my work, no matter what I'm working on.

So-called reality TV, which dominates British channels, is destroying what made it cherishable to me and lots of others in the first place. I loved Alan Clarke, Ken Loach and Alan Bleasdale's work. In fact the first TV dramas I ever saw were 'Screen Twos' produced by David Thompson, who also produced a lot of Alan Clarke.

What you do in your art - TV, music, film stuff - touches people. And they want to touch you. So that's a blessing. I'm okay with it.

The one thing the blues don't get is the backing and pushing of TV and radio like a lot of this garbage you hears. They choke stuff down people's throat so they got no choice but to listen to it.

I don't really discriminate with my art. To me, it's my art, and it's to be expressed through whichever medium is there, whether it's treading the boards in the theater, on the small-screen TV, or on the large screen. I love theater, and it's definitely something I would love to do.

My dad was a copywriter on Madison Avenue at the same time as the TV show 'Mad Men' is set. My mom raised the kids and was a scholarship coordinator at a school. More importantly, dad was a writer and my mom an artist.

There is so much that I love about all aspects of making a film or a TV show.

I think a melody is a melody. And the way I usually start is I start writing my themes without even writing to picture to just try to find the tone for the movie or the TV show.

Music is everything to me. It's the heart and soul of a movie or TV show to me because it can be such an injection of tone, and I think tone is everything to a story.

I find TV shows easier to do than films.

Inspiration comes from so many sources. Music, other fiction, the non-fiction I read, TV shows, films, news reports, people I know, stories I hear, misheard words or lyrics, dreams... Motivation? The memory of the rush I get from a really good writing session - even on a bad day, I know I'll find that again if I keep going.

It's really cool to hear your stuff in things like TV shows. It's a pretty cool feeling to hear what you did in the studio and then to hear it in places like that. It's definitely surreal.

Seminars, TV shows, documentaries, always spreading Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I'm an instrument of this art more than a character myself.

Initially, I was into dance and learnt Bharatnatyam for eight years. I appeared on various TV shows.

But really, it was reading that led me to writing. And in particular, reading the American classics like Twain who taught me at an early age that ordinary lives of ordinary people can be made into high art.