Georges Rouault Quotes

You can't try and make something you think someone else will like. You can only make what you like. How can you make a song that Yo-Landi Visser likes? You don't know me. You'll never understand me.

Respect is one of the greatest expressions of love. If other people try to write your story, it means they don't respect you. They consider that you're not a good artist who can write your own story, even though you were born to write your own story.

I just go in the studio and do what I love to do. People will be people, they'll come and go, they'll like you then not like you, I just try to stay true to myself first and that's what most important because that way when you are successful you can stand up and say look, I did it my way and I did it the way that I wanted to do it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression.

The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may.

Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our own spontaneous expression with good humored inflexibility whether the whole cry of voices is on the other side.

I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.

What's the point of rap if you can't be yourself, huh?

If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.

I'm selfish, I think. I think an artist has to be. I'm not worried about what people think. I play the parts that I find interesting. It'd bother me more to be just pigeonholed into doing what people think is ethical or that's boring to me. I don't pick parts with that in mind, I just find interesting stories. If it's interesting to me, then I do it.

Every time I dance I have a high. I mean every time I danced, it was the whole world was the stage and I was in control of it and there was a form and a ritual and yet it was spontaneous and life didn't matter after that of before

Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality.

The detachment of the artist is kind of creepy. It's kind of rude, and yet really it's where art comes from. It's not the same as courage. It's closer to bad manners than to courage. If you're going to be a writer, you basically have to say, 'this is just who I am'. There's a certain indefensibility about it. It's not about loving your community and taking care of it — you're not attached to the chamber of commerce. It's a little unsafe. You have to be willing to have only four friends, not 11.

I was born to stand out. I don't care whether or not people will find me attractive on screen. That's not why I became an actor. I know that more and more with each new role.

A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.

I guess you have to be a little arrogant to be a writer. I decided early on that just because a lot of other writers were bothered by getting bad reviews didn't really mean that the things were particularly important. By the same token, the good ones didn't mean all that much either. So I just forget about reviews and I wrote what I wanted.

Art is about freedom of expression, and should not be molded to fit any propaganda or lofty ideal.

I think you have to find your own language. You find your footing with it, and you start to express it in certain ways.

The world has certain rules - Hollywood has certain rules - but it doesn't mean you have to play by them, and I don't, or I'd be a miserable person.

Metallica lives in a little bubble. We just do our own thing. We're not part of any trends or waves or fads. We can just do our own thing, all the time. It's a great luxury. I don't think we were really appreciative of it until recently, and really understood that it is what keeps us alive. It's great to be able to have the freedom to run around and do all this crazy stuff, and at all cost, avoid making another record, just to piss our managers off.

I think that fashion is very important for me and I think that it's a wonderful means of self-expression.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

There’s nothing more embarrassing than a person who tries to guess what the great American public would like, makes a compromise for the first time, and falls flat on his face… I would rather be a failure on my own terms than a success on someone else’s. That’s a difficult statement to live up to, but then I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.

The spontaneous power of the child, his demand for self-expression, can not by any possibility be suppressed.