Artist Quotes

Whether you are sixteen or over sixty, remember, understatement is the rule of a fine makeup artist.

Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.

Failure is the most important part of an artist's training, and one you cannot afford to do without.

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.

Anything is art if an artist says it is.

As an artist I come to sing, but as a citizen, I will always speak for peace, and no one can silence me in this.

There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another.

Once you're a Motown artist, you're always a Motown artist

We have to give our opinion, we have to say something, or we are a part of it. As an artist I am forced to say something.

Originality depends only on the character of the drawing and the vision peculiar to each artist.

I was worried in the '80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall.

An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it.

If we don't have a sense of humor, we lack a sense of perspective

With the most primitive means the artist creates something which the most ingenious and efficient technology will never be able to create.

It is human nature to want to exchange ideas, and I believe that, at bottom, every artist wants no more than to tell the world what he has to say.

The artist is not a special kind of man, but every man is a special kind of artist.

Through her paintings, she breaks all the taboos of the woman's body and of female sexuality.

To be an artist, you have to nurture the things that most people discard.

What’s any artist, but the dregs of his work?

Artists have really never had any representation on Capitol Hill, because it's not the nature of the artist to join together and make a unified presence. Those days kind of died in the '60s.

Failure and its accompanying misery is for the artist his most vital source of creative energy.

For an artist to do creative work, he needs at once physical health and some physiomental ill health. He needs both serenity and gloom.

If that condition of mind and soul, which we call inspiration, lasted long without intermission, no artist could survive it. The strings would break and the instrument be shattered into fragments.

The artist must try to raise the level of taste of the masses, not debase himself to the level of unformed and impoverished taste.

The artist enriches the soul of humanity. The artist delights people with a thousand different shades of feeling.

That is what the title of artist means: one who perceives more than his fellows, and who records more than he has seen.

Every artist is supposed to get emotional. You're painting pictures of emotions.

There are photographs that I don’t take now, that I previously would have taken without any thought at all as to any misinterpretations.

The camera for an artist is just another tool. It is no more mechanical than a violin if you analyze it. Beyond the rudiments, it is up to the artist to create art, not the camera.

There comes a moment in a young artist's life when he knows he has to bring something to the stage from within himself. He has to put in something in order to be able to take something.

Artists are the gate keepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.

When you touch and change peoples lives with a song, that's when you've made it as an artist

If all the ways I have been along were marked on a map and joined up with a line, it might represent a minotaur.

I'm in shock. Whitney was such an amazing artist. When I started my English career, I wanted to be like her. I loved her so much. My prayers go out to her daughter and to all of her family.

Art-making is not about telling the truth but making the truth felt

Artists are always the Johnny Appleseeds of gentrification.

I've dated the sweet mama's boy, the musician rocker, the struggling artist - basically a lot of people without jobs.

Being an artist, I had an artist's instincts.You can see the picture before it's taken; then it's up to you to get the camera to see

One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.

A certain death of an artist is overconfidence.

I paint because this is what I love to do. I have been painting since I was a kid and my dream was to become a well known professional artist

I have always been aware that you have to get people listening before you can change their minds. Any artist's big fear is being ignored, so if you get debate, that's great.

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

The artist need not know very much, best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.

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.

You are a paintbrush in hands of the Artist.

The great artist, whether he be musician, painter, or poet, is known for this absolute unexpectedness.

These are dangerous days we live in and you, the artists, are our last defense.

The studios will go wherever they smell money. It's like sharks to the blood.

Artists are often excellent businessmen. They have to be. Otherwise they do not remain artists.