Top 100 Artist You Quotes
#1. Like I've been sketched by an amateur artist: if you don't look too closely, it's all right, but start focusing and all the smudges and mistakes become really obvious.
Lauren Oliver
#2. I don't think music can be held. I don't think artists can be put into boxes or places. It's all about creating and making the best music you can.
Trey Songz
#3. When you're an artist, you're expected to describe yourself in interviews every day in five words.
Halsey
#4. Peter used to say that an artist's job is to make order out of chaos. You collect details, look for a pattern, and organize. You make sense out of senseless facts. You puzzle together bits of everything. You shuffle and reorganize. Collage. Montage. Assemble.
Chuck Palahniuk
#5. As art reveals the artist more than the world, so you see yourself and what you are not in the mirror of another culture.
Jennifer Stone
#6. The most successful Subway customers, of course, are the ones who can't keep their hands off their sandwich. Join your artist in the sandwich assembling process. That sneeze guard is a suggestion. That sneeze guard is trying to intimidate you into staying on the customer's side of the partition.
Mallory Ortberg
#7. I had no idea the amount of people who even knew who I was. Suddenly, they were coming up and saying, "You're my favorite artist." Very surreal. After years of trying to get work, and then coming here and being able to meet some of the fans of Array.
Eric Wight
#8. You have to do what you need to do as an artist. You have to have that courage.
Liz Phair
#9. The thing you can't underestimate is the true fan's intimacy. So Lady Gaga or anybody's true fan, I don't think they're going anywhere. There are people who are into commitment. If they're connecting with an artist, I think they'll be there over the long course.
Alanis Morissette
#10. What I strive most to achieve in art is to make you forget the material. The sculptor must ... communicate whatever struck his sensibility, so that a person beholding his work may experience in its entirety the emotion felt by the artist while he observed nature.
Medardo Rosso
#11. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.
Janet Fitch
#12. A degree in art doesn't automatically make you an artist any more than lacking a degree precludes you from becoming an artist.
Ted Orland
#13. Five percent seems very little to ask when you consider that the artist, through his or her efforts over many years, is largely responsible for the increased value of their work.
Joe Fafard
#14. How can you measure the contribution that artists make to society?
John Kurtz
#15. I don't think you can spend too much time as an artist believing what other people think.
Liz Phair
#16. The big pay-off was to work as an artist and gain some shred of respect from your friends, who were also artists. But there was never any notion that you could make a living out of art. On the rare occasions you had a gallery show, and sold a little work, well, that was just gravy.
Edward Ruscha
#17. I just feel like everyone and their mother thinks they can be an artist. You can't. Sorry. I know I was born to be one.
Paz De La Huerta
#18. I want to remind you today that the greatest Artist of all time created you. He dreamed about you long before you were born, before a single brushstroke of your life took place.
Victoria Osteen
#19. I think you always, as an artist, feel like you would like to be more and more specific about your intent and your interests.
Jeff Koons
#20. I learned very quickly that if you just go out and make something and maybe fail at it or you just learn how to edit it yourself. I edited my last films. You just do it yourself. You feel so creatively empowered and you're controlling your own destiny as artists.
Daryl Wein
#22. People ask me all the time, ALL the time, they say the same exact thing. They say, 'Bo, you're an artist ... how do we fix Africa?'
Bo Burnham
#23. But it's not just "Do you want a hit?" More importantly, it has to be something we - the artist and I - like. If you go in just wanting a hit song, it's not going to happen that way. You have to first be committed to making music you like.
Lukasz Gottwald
#24. If you're an artist, you're an artist; that's the only way I can explain it.
Malik Bendjelloul
#25. When you hear my records today hear a vanilla sounding artist with no black inflection, although I was trying to imitate what I heard.
Pat Boone
#26. I believe that if your primary motivation in life is to be moral, you don't become an artist.
Mary Gordon
#27. Make your life your art. It doesn't have to be that you're an artist. I know I talk about art a lot, but I mean a very broad thing with that. You could be a veterinarian, that's your art. Find your art; find your thing you love.
Gerard Way
#28. You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet, because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist.
Bob Dylan
#29. To be an artist means to invite an occupation into your life that requires commitment and hard work, but the rewards and satisfaction you'll get make the work seem like play. But you have to do it every day.
Veronica Lawlor
#30. Charge less, but charge. Otherwise, you will not be taken seriously, and you do your fellow artists no favours if you undercut the market.
Elizabeth Aston
#31. I love touring, I love doing the live show and it's just like a musical artist, you just keep coming up with material and as long as you're coming up with the material and as long as audiences like it, you just keep doing it, it's your job.
Jeff Dunham
#32. The thing that's interesting as you get older as an artist is that the biggest challenge seems to be: how do you stay relevant?
Robert Longo
#33. The first and most important thing is to remain free, free in each line you undertake, in your ideas and in your political action, in your moral conduct. The artist especially must remain free from all outer restraints.
Hans Hartung
#34. You have a strange relationship with calamity when you're a writer: you write about it; as an artist, you objectify and fetishize it. You render life into material, and that's a creepy thing to do.
Tony Kushner
#35. Artists have so much more control of their futures - they don't need to rely so much on major labels or big companies to help them. You have artists like Skrillex that can dominate so much that he gets 5 Grammy nominees, and he's clearly an underground artist.
Steve Aoki
#36. They say your childhood influences your tastes and interests, or your approach if you're an artist. So what you create, whatever you saw, whatever your childhood was like - it influences how you're going to end up.
Brett Ratner
#37. I certainly fall in love with artists. I think that's probably the aspiration of an artist, to make a listener empathize so deeply that they do fall in love with you.
K.d. Lang
#38. An artist is somebody that puts themselves in a room, they're a wee bit self-indulgent and you know, sink into their music and it [will] be a very personal experience. An entertainer was somebody that took their God-given talent and shared it with people. And I've always wanted to be an entertainer.
Johnny Reid
#39. For a man it's like if something goes on on-stage you'll have a drink at the bar and talk about it. With a female artist it's a big deal, you have a meeting and she's mad at you for the next couple of shows!
Chris Johnson
#40. Perfection is a theory. You cannot be a perfect human being, perfect artist. You cannot be a perfect husband, you cannot be a perfect father probably and probably I am not. But go through your daily routine with hope you will be a little better in all respects, and do something meaningful
Mikhail Baryshnikov
#41. You'll nip anybody who's coming at you with bullshit. You don't play around. You take this craft very seriously. It's what separates you, what separates an actor from an artist.
Nicole Kidman
#42. You are confusing two notions, "the solution of a problem" and "the correct posing of the question". Only the second is essential for the artist.
Anton Chekhov
#43. The transition from painter to artist comes when you cross the line of painting what you see to painting what you feel about what you see.
T. Allen Lawson
#44. You can tell an honest artist from one who's just given all their songs.
Rita Ora
#45. Everyone always comes to one point in their life as an artist where you can either let your heart guide you or your ego.
Louie Anderson
#46. You're a talented artist," he began, and I burst into more tears. He jumped up, agitated, and tried to give the book back to me. "What?" he demanded anxiously. "I mean it! You are! Orange is tricky!
Vicki Keire
#47. When you touch and change peoples lives with a song, that's when you've made it as an artist
Tim McGraw
#48. When you are an artist you can turn your hand to anything, in any style. Once you have the tools then all the artforms are the same in the end.
David Bowie
#49. I pay tribute to the writing always. The writer is a creative artist and the director is an interpretive artist and the actors are interpretive. You take zero and make it into something, that's always amazing to me.
Clint Eastwood
#50. What are we artists for? We are for showing you what you've wandered for to find the home of your spirit ...
Hiroko Sakai
#51. *on saying I Love You* When you hear those words, it's like being picked out from the crowd.
Philip Siegel
#52. The reason you work as an artist is to stay open and ask questions.
Robert Wilson
#53. There is actually no such thing as an Artist type. 'Artist' is just an economic designation, a box you tick on a form. We are all people, and we are all creative.
Russell Smith
#54. My synesthesia is mostly gone - it was a much bigger factor when I was a kid. But having no depth perception is a bonus when you're trying to lay out flat images and describe them to an artist - flat is all I see.
G. Willow Wilson
#55. If only the people around you know you're an artist, then you're doing something wrong.
Fetty Wap
#56. The worst thing you can do as an artist is to repeat yourself.
Conor Oberst
#57. When you're young artist, it's really important to like pay attention to what you're doing and be honest with yourself and in the creative proccess.
Chester Bennington
#58. I realized that I wanted to get better in every way. As a person, as a friend, as a songwriter, as a musician, as an artist, record producer, you name it.
Kenny Chesney
#59. It's the honest point of view of an artist: You have to please.I'd like viewers to come away from my films unsure whether they've understood them. I want to leave them wondering.
Jean-Pierre Melville
#60. You don't see a lot of black rock stars. The music industry tends to be segregated stylistically. It's hard for a black artist to cross over to rock music.
Lance Reddick
#61. I always figured it was best if I write my songs, take them to my publisher and just lay back. There used to be so many things going on - getting to the artist, getting to the publishers - you know, politics. I just didn't want to get mixed up in all of that.
Otis Blackwell
#62. It was not my dream to be an artist. How could it have been? I thought, artist, much like a leader, was something you either were or weren't. Never something you set out to be.
K'naan
#63. Every artist feels alone and isolated, Friends are very important in terms of all sorts of definitions of oneself. They tell you what you are and what they are aside from the intellectual aspects.
Jasper Johns
#64. I'm an artist and you can fantasize about me however you want.
Ricky Martin
#65. Don't listen to what anyone tells you about the kind of music you make. Just make it! Be yourself, make your own music, and be totally true to your art. Because it's kind of a selfish thing to be an artist.
Billy Sherwood
#66. All artists and creative people are basically unhappy people. If you were happy, that would mean you were content with the world as it was and why would you ever want to change it?
Peter Schjeldahl
#67. Once you're a Motown artist, that's your stigmatism, and I was there from the very first day.
Smokey Robinson
#68. Pro-Tip: Ask for one clear action per panel. Don't ask your artist to do two, three, or more things in a shot. You want those? Add more panels.
Dan Slott
#69. We argue, as you know. I don't think she like me, but so what. I say how I feel. Feelings. That's all we have as human beings.' - Tommy
Greg Sestero
#70. In a painting, you can't make out whether the artist painted the left eye before the right eye. In Chinese calligraphy, you can see the progression of the artist's stroke.
Vikram Seth
#71. I think it's so important as an artist to stand up for what you believe in, and I think that if equal rights is something that you really believe in, and you have a voice that people listen to, and you need to share that - I think that's really important.
Betty Who
#72. People think because it's photography it's not worth as much, and because it's a woman artist, you're still not getting as much - there's still definitely that happening. I'm still really competitive when it comes to, I guess, the male painters and male artists. I still think that's really unfair.
Cindy Sherman
#73. And remember whatever discipline you're in, whether you're a musician or a photographer, fine artist or a cartoonist, writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer... whatever you do, you have a thing that's unique. You have the ability to make art.
Neil Gaiman
#75. Talking with other artists is an incredible process. You engage with the work very differently ... a nd different relationships between different works start to emerge. To tap into that energy-to tap into that moment-is great for me as an exercise.
Shahzia Sikander
#76. On radio, you're an artist. On TV, you're a servant.
Red Barber
#77. The mystery of the artist is something that the 70's made, but it's not the same these days, and I don't know ... to me, I feel like letting your fans know about you is awesome.
Ryan Follese
#78. Mark Twain was an artist working at the highest level. He wrote a book, his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that put America on the world stage for literature. It's almost as if, if you start reading that book as a racist, you cannot finish it and still be a racist.
Val Kilmer
#79. Artists aren't looking for you to write them something; they're looking for you to give them something new.
Ester Dean
#80. At the age of four, you were an artist. And at seven, you were a poet.
Seth Godin
#81. A true artist should have no secrets. On the stage, you must be able to transmit every emotion to the spectator.
Anna Pavlova
#82. I was never an R&B artist. People coined me one, but that's because, especially if you're in the States, if you're black and you sing, then you're R&B.
Kelis
#83. When you're a Chicago artist, to play Lollapalooza, that's not a normal thing. It's artists on a path to a certain place that do that. Chief Keef did it; Kids These Days did it; Cool Kids did it. And I'm the next Cool-Kids-Chief, if you will.
Chance The Rapper
#84. Whether it's just the career path of doing independent music, being an artist, however you want to pigeon-hole it, it creates a certain type of character.
Doseone
#85. Even though the industry is very big and there's lots of money, when it gets down to it, whether it's a photographer or a designer, as well as a stylist or makeup artist, you're really only working with maybe four or five people on a project. It's all quite small and intimate.
Guido Palau
#86. Being an artist is not exactly the most universally respected, or secure thing to do with your life. It can be frightening and you can feel that you're taking a lot of risks just with your own life, and your family's security. But the rewards outweigh those things.
Joan Osborne
#87. I get nervous calling myself an artist. I feel I'm more like an interpreter or a violinist, you know.
Meryl Streep
#88. Why is it every other person you meet says they're an artist? A real artist doesn't need to gas on about it, he doesn't have time. He does his work and sweats it out in silence, and no one can help him at all.
Paula McLain
#89. I think Amy is a really difficult example. With any artist, none of us understands what it's like having the world's media scrutinising everything you do.
Nicki Chapman
#90. For some reason I can't explain, artist and musicians tend to look younger than our age. Being in music, you need this youthful sense of discovery and wonder for what you're doing and keep your imagination open. That's a youthful way of looking at life and I think that reflects in how you age.
Joshua Bell
#91. When people say that nothing happens in their lives I believe them. But you must understand that everything happens to an artist; time is always redeemed, nothing is lost and wonders never cease.
Muriel Spark
#92. At school, I always felt the art room was the place where you could sit and talk. It was a place of solace. I wasn't the best artist at school by a long shot; it was more the understanding and the support that came from that room.
Sam Taylor-Wood
#93. The artist can't give you an answer that's satisfying to the dreadful reality of your existence. So the best you can do is maybe entertain people and refresh them for an hour-and-a-half.
Woody Allen
#94. It's a lot easier to say you're a comic than a performance artist.
Paul Reubens
#95. My personality is very good for nurturing. I'm very empathetic to my artists. You speak to anyone who's worked with me and they'll say, "Oh yeah, Steve's great. He doesn't have the ego."
Steve Lillywhite
#96. It's harder to make money when you're not a machine in a massive apparatus designed only to make money, but artists will figure it out.
Ken Baumann
#97. The one thing I'm jealous of a signature-artist situation is that if you just do one thing and slight variations on it, you wouldn't have to kill yourself to get a show done. I'm sick of killing myself.
Jim Shaw
#98. The myth of 'You have to be a tortured artist' is a myth," says Lin. "You can have a happy, healthy life and still go to all these crazy dark places in your writing, and then go play with your child and hug your wife.
Jeremy McCarter
#99. "The Moderately Talented ... " is just a commentary on the conflict that happens when a young artist girl looks up to you, but you're attracted to them in a different way than they are to you.
Mark Kozelek
#100. I want[ed] to make a show of really big pictures, because you see male artists doing it all the time. It just seemed like such a big egotistical thing. I thought, 'I don't know that many women that really do that ... Damn it, I'm gonna do that-make this really big picture.'
Cindy Sherman
