Marilyn Manson Quotes

If I paint a hammer and sickle people may think it is a representation of Communism, but for me it is only a hammer and sickle. I just want to reproduce the objects for what they are, not for what they mean.

As artists we are here to make you uncomfortable with the complexity of your reality.

The reading eye must do the work to make them live, and so it did, again and again, never the same life twice, as the artist had intended.

If you look at the lives of artists, sitting in nature, painting, having the freedom. I think it's over. I think we're living in such a difficult moment of human development. Artists have more responsibility than ever before.

I don't expect everyone to get something deep out of it. Some people can just listen to the music, or get their aggressions out, but I think with any great painting or movie, album or whatever it is, it's better if people can take what they need from it. That they're not forced to get some particular message.

It is not the job of artists to give the audience what the audience want. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artist. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need

That's the artist's job, really: continually setting yourself free, and giving yourself new options and new ways of thinking about things.

My job as an artist, as I see it, is to understand and in some cases to take on various ways of thinking about people and the world that are different from my own, sometimes radically different.

I don't think that there's that much difference between a photograph of a fist up someone's ass and a photograph of carnations in a bowl.

The job of the artist, is to say, wait a second, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's re-examine it.

A movie is just like a work of art or a book or a piece of music. The intent of its maker is one thing, but its interpretation by an audience is something else. I don't stop at what the filmmaker wanted to do.

When I see someone who reads something of mine and draws something out of it that's very different from my perspective, I think that's actually cool. Sometimes it's worrisome when you feel they badly misinterpret it, but it just says that they're thinking, and they're bringing their own interpretation to bear on it. [...] That's part of the wonderful thing about putting words into the world, and if I was worried about that, I couldn't be a writer.

I think artists are going to express things from an emotional point of view, that's their job, to suggest and interpret, and report what they witness. That's their job as artists, you're looking for the rub, where's the rub, you're a storyteller, you're looking for the rub, not necessarily the solutions, or you're not necessarily educated, you're not the winner of a debate contest, a national debate contest, you're not necessarily a person who has a doctorate in anything.

I think the stakes are always high when you're an artist of color - to get things right, to get things perfect and make everybody happy. But I'm not concerned with politicians and what they think. And I'm not always going to succeed. I'll have missteps, but I hope that people will be patient with the show and us and know that our intentions are good.

I think what makes people think that is because of things people write. It really doesn't have anything to do with the artist.

You've gotta be an outsider a little bit to shake yourself loose from the mill, the "machine." In order to even cut the space in your life to pursue what most people literally cannot afford a moment to pursue. So, yeah. I think that not only is that the role of the artist, but it might be a requirement.

Artists are like messengers. A song is authored by you, but its interpretation is owned by other people. And you have no control over that.

If I was an artist, and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.

If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic....Authors arrive at text and subtext in thousands of ways, learning each time they begin anew how to recognize a valuable idea and how to reader the texture that accompanies, reveals or displays it to its best advantage.

You know, I'm incredibly blessed to be able to have this level of choice as an artist today. In this economy, it's something that I, you know, pinch myself at constantly, just thinking about how I could wake up tomorrow and decide I'm going to start painting this or that. So it's good.

I don't want to have anything to say, it just gets in the way. I think the journey of an artist is a journey of discovery and some engagements with paint, with the nature of material, with bodily things...One wants to open the story, not close it.

Personally, I think you can put any interpretation you want on anything, but when someone suggests that Can't Buy Me Love is about a prostitute, I draw the line. That's going too far.

My original idea- and I still want to do it -for Pinko Records, would be to create a platform for other artists to do the same thing I did. They could create their own levels of donation and final goal. I have no idea how I would make any money on that -but I don't think like that.

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.

My job as an artist is to present the material. My job as a woman is to receive from it what I need.