Artist Quotes
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If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one ... he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent.
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...the right to free expression is something one seizes, not something one is given.... if it does exist, it exists to be used against the established order.... There is absolute opposition between the artist and the state.
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In order to even begin to learn how to play his instrument, it takes the guitarist weeks to build calluses on his fingertips; it takes the saxophonist months to strengthen his lip so that he might play his instrument for only a five-minute stretch; it can take the pianist years to develop dual hand and multiple finger coordination. Why do writers assume they can just “write” with no training whatsoever-and then expect, on their first attempt, to be published internationally? What makes them think they're so much inherently greater, need so much less training than any other artists?
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I think when people watch a lot of artists, they're expecting this showiness, and I'm cracking jokes with people. I'm heckling back. I'm interacting.
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There's such a freedom about being an artist... You're not accountable - you're this renegade thing.
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The fact that there isn't a performance right for the use of sound recordings on terrestrial radio means there's hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign income that doesn't come to the artists in America.
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The disintegration of the culture starts with the artist. Im on a crusade to turn the tide in the arts, to restore dignity to the arts and, by extension, to the culture.
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The artists could be dead, but some of them are not so distant from us, and make us feel as if they are alive with us. Such artists are worth calling "contemporary artists".
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I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say "he feels deeply, he feels tenderly".
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Even with artists I love, only about a third of their music is what really hits the sweet spot for me.
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Any artist should be grateful for a naive grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.
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I don't fall into the category of tortured artist. But it's not made me more or less anything.
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There's so much great stuff out there. The artists who've been most formative to me are the ones I've had the privilege to work with over the years.
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Through education comes understanding. Through understanding comes true appreciation. All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
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When you choose your profession, you also choose your own downfall or success. If one chooses to become an artist it is 99% certain that it will go to hell. So you should not become that. If you study economics on Oslo, 99% of all students will do very well and 1% will reach the top.
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The creative artist is the one wanting to make order out of chaos. The rest of us just accept disorder -if we even recognize it- and get a bang out of our five beautiful senses, if we’re lucky.
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The one thing I'm really the most confident in as an artist is my songwriting ability and ear for pop music. I'm really excited to show that off. It was a side that I wasn't able to show on 'American Idol.'
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Do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover? With kids, your focus changes. I don't want to go to PTA meetings.
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I think a lot of people do big movies not because they are talented artists but because they can function in the circumstances.
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I'd like to think I'm a versatile artist without straying too far from who I am.
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I see that happening with hip hop purists now. Where you have an artist like a Kendrick [Lamar] or a Drake, who are really trying different things emotionally, different things musically, and on a mainstream level. And you have underground hip hop fans dissing it, for the simple fact that it's mainstream - not because what they're doing is whack, or what they're doing is not sincere.
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I am not Lyme disease, that's not who I am, I'm still a feminist artist, but this is a part of my story too, and I'm not going to keep it out to look cooler.
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The artist has to make the viewer understand that his world is too narrow, he has to open up to new perspectives.
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My goal the whole time has been for people to see me as a stand-alone artist. I came out with Young Money, the biggest hip-hop label in the world at the time. And then it was, 'How do I branch away from Lil Wayne?'
