Popular quotes about Artists! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Vulnerability of artists is definitely what makes organizations like PEN necessary because, as I tried to argue, the actual work that writers and artists do has an ornery way of surviving. Particularly in this age of the internet, it is very easy for forbidden work to be found online somewhere if you know where to look. Artists themselves, however, are in increasing danger, and not just artists. The great concern is that year after year, rising numbers of journalists are being killed in pursuit of their work.
Salman RushdieThere are so many artists these days that are trying to imitate other artists and go for a certain style; there's a lot of bullshit in the music industry. I don't want to deviate from anything else other than the music, cause that's why I listen to my favorite records - not because I like the way the artists dress.
Mister LiesPeople are very uncomfortable when you call actors artists because there are a lot of actors out there that aren't artists - there are a lot of actors that are hired for very specific reasons that are shallow and have to do with sexual currency and what the industry thinks sells. Real actors are artists, they're expressionists.
Jordan GavarisI've watched so many women, from Kathleen Hanna all the way up to Taylor Swift, whether they're pop artists or rock stars or fine artists or writers, it is the subhistory of female artists that if you're going to make art, you're also going to have a full-time job of defending your right to make art.
Amanda PalmerWe get better product when the focus is on the fans and the artists - all artists; musical artists; singers, the graphic designers, the painters, the DJs, I mean everybody, the writers. We can't allow ourselves to feel as if we're not important in the equation when we are everything!
David BannerI personally have never trusted museums. ... It is because museums, broadly speaking, live off of the art and artifacts of others, often art and artifacts that have been obtained by dubious means. But they also manipulate whatever it is they present to the public; hence, until Judy Chicago, in the 1970s ... few women artists were hung in any major museum. Indian artists? Artifacts only, please. Black artists? Something musical, maybe? And so forth.
Alice WalkerBut Zarathustra made it clear in which direction the answer lay; it is towards the artist-psychologist, the intuitional thinker. There are very few such men in the world's literature; the great artists are not thinkers, the great thinkers are seldom artists.
Colin WilsonArt is a path on which we honour our world. Art may not be the only path, but it is a good path, even though at times a difficult one. As bearers of this honour, we artists do not need to simply render our world as we see it but as we might ourselves redesign it. As artists, one of our privileges is to invent.
Robert GennIt is short-sighted, not to say stupid, in the correct desire to be relevant as Christian artists in an unchristian age, to pick up the secular fashion of the immediate generation before us and immerse oneself in that as your tradition. That's why Christian artists so often seem to be a generation late.
Calvin SeerveldActually, I don't think there's anyone that represents the artists, except the artists themselves.
Isaac HansonI work with many jazz artists as Miles Davis, Laughlin, etc.. One of the things all these artists had in common is that they had no fear.
George DukeBernard [Leach] knew Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Terry Frost, Peter Lanyon, Johnny Wells. I can think of a number of people that we met there just because we were living with Bernard. Some of them became our friends, particularly the younger artists, but we were privileged to at least meet and talk with the older artists also. And they would come to dinner, and we would simply be included in the conversation, which was quite fascinating.
Warren MacKenzieAn artists job is to see. And to go out in the world and see it firsthand, just as it is; to report with line and words what is seen. To be in the world, not just study about the world, that is the artists task
Robert FulghumWe don't necessarily need so many artists. I recommend that many of the people who think they want to be artists should go into the American Friends Service Committee, or do government outreach to communities that don't have water, or that need seeds or ecological assistance. It would create a system in which people with engaged sensibilities and potential insight assist instead of imposing. I think it could leap right out of the art world into wonderful community action.
Carolee SchneemannI think that these are different times, and different things are available to artists, and certain things have become passรฉ. You've already seen the outcome of a lot of things that seemed to have a lot of potential. We've already heard that, and I can't tell you if it made a difference or not. But we already know that artists can do that, and they shouldn't feel threatened by doing it. They're probably not going to change the world. They're going to change a few people's perspectives and maybe make somebody's day at times, if they can.
Jakob DylanThe best musicians or sound-artists are people who never considered themselves to be artists or musicians.
Aphex TwinArt has been hijacked by nonartists. It's been taken over by bookkeeping. The whole thing is so corrupt. But I suppose that's okay. For artists, everything is grist for the mill. Artists are like cockroaches; we can't be stamped out.
Elaine de KooningIn the world of comics, Jack Kirby and Will Eisner may have been more influential artists, but Joe Kubert was its most influential man. Even if he were to be remembered solely for his body of illustration work, heโd still be one of the greats, but by opening the Kubert School in 1976, he was able to personally mentor and educate literally thousands of successful artists who owe their careers to his teachings.
Mark WaidI really feel that artists or musicians are controversial people. Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity. If people are not doing that, they're not artists - they're artisans.
Yoko OnoAt any rate, when I began photographing myself, I could place myself in poses that had not been investigated by other artists. It was an area other artists hadn't touched. Then, I went on from there. I manipulated my image - distorting it, brutalizing it. People thought I was mad, but I felt I had to tell these things. It gave me a kind of excitement.
Lucas SamarasFor hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them.
Tom GlazerThe film [Boy and the World]gave me the possibility to create a new language. Animation is a very rich medium but hasn't fully been exploited by artists. Often artists are trapped by words.
Alex AbreuYou know, artists are influenced by other artists. We're all deeply influenced by what's around us; we don't make anything cold. Sometimes we think that we do. But within that, the most important part is that even though we're influenced, what are the levels of invention that we carry forth even as we've been influenced by something that's come before?
Carrie Mae WeemsLeonard de Vinci, for example, is a great artist, but he is living in the past. However, I don't feel John Cage and Matsuzawa Yutaka as artists who live in the past. Their ideas are still alive in our world because they express the very important concerns of our age. That is why I could trust them as "contemporary artists".
Yasumasa MorimuraThere's a lot of variety of musicians in Korea. I cannot say they are the best in the world, but I can say that Korean artists are really dynamic artists, so I am going to show that from now on.
PSYThe record companies really do conspire against the artists. Especially the black artists
Michael JacksonWhat makes someone an artist? I don't think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren't artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artist who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.
Seth GodinArtists try to ask questions, and within our society, unless there are artists, those questions don't get asked. And everybody blames the market.
Lawrence WeinerI went to Havana, and I was like, "Wow, there's culture everywhere!" That was one thing that I did notice when I went to Cuba was that artists are paid to be artists, and poets are paid to be poets, and musicians are paid to be musicians by the government. The government - and I'm not saying that the Cuban government's perfect - but the government does place a value on culture.
Aaron McGruderI didn't have to be a pop singer with a certain look. When I started, there was really a revolution in natural artists with blues and folk artists crossing over; otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to get started.
Bonnie RaittI've always been a firm believer that soul music never dies. The artists we still listen to today, years after their music was first heard are mostly soul artists; Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, Chaka Khan. We still sing along to all of them with our hearts.
Jill ScottI think the role of artists in the past was very different. Artists had less responsibility in many ways.
Marina AbramovicWithout intermediate artists, music is what "American Idol" decides is great or made by the very poor, because Sharon Osbourne's made everything free. No, we have to support our local artists. It's just that simple. Otherwise, we will have no art.
Al JourgensenThere's a bunch of people who sit around and make excuses for themselves and get upset with artists, but you already know what this is - it's an ego-driven business.
Rico LoveIf you view computer designers as artists, they're really into more of an art form that can be mass-produced, like records, or like prints, than they are into fine arts. They want something where they can express themselves to a large number of people through their medium, and their medium is technology and manufacturing.
Steve JobsIndividuality and originality is was separates good and great artists! How much they can move people with what they do! If they can shake the heart with what they do, is the key!
HiromiI'm not sure I'm going to be that type of artist but I do love cultural icons. Like Solange has been really great at that. Releasing her album end of last year and being really strong in their sound, bands like Little Dragon, artists like James Blake. You know their music when you hear them. They have a really particular sound and it's really cultural and people copy that sound. You hear it in other songs and you're like 'That's a James Blake tune'.
NAOThere are many readers of the book, who don't know anything about the authors and the artists. There is more than one author. It doesn't matter, if you can't make the reader dive into the story and surround him with that environment and those characters. That's an experience that lasts longer than figuring out who did what. I think that's what makes our working relationship better, it helps us to make a book that feels unique and not like different voices.
Gabriel BaIf the affairs of the world were put in the hands of the screwball artists, it couldnโt be in a worse state than it is now !
Man RayI don't believe artists should be subjected to experiences that harden the sensibilities; without sensibility no fine work can ever be done.
Janet ScudderYou can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.
Eddie VedderFriends, we have now won....I say to Aymaras, Quechuas, Chiquitaos, and Guaranis: for the first time we are going to be presidents. And I want to say to businesses, intellectual professionals, and artists: do not abandon us.
Evo MoralesI think the best actors in the world are here in New York City. And this city is just so vibrant the energy is just phenomenal. Great crews here. All the technicians, all the artists that work in this industry. I've just been very happy with the body that we've been able to do, especially those films we shot here in New York City.
Spike LeeThe impresario's job is to pick the right people who can pick the right people. He picks the people who can pick artists and relate to them. People who know what the market craves.
John KaoI can truthfully say, in arts I have pretty much seen and done it all and, at my age, I have no patience with wide-eyed artists fooling themselves about their place in history. We should know by now that it is the whim of the elite few who set the rules... those who have fooled themselves into believing that they are God's gift to the ages.
Donald Lambert