Jane Smiley Quotes

I'm all about freedom in art. I'm from Texas, so when someone tells you which way to ride your horse, you think 'I'll just go to a different ranch. You guys are riding it backwards anyway.

If you paint a picture and I paint a picture, we each want to do it our own way. And we'll stand or fall on whatever we did.

We are free when our actions emanate from our total personality, when they express it, when they resemble it in the indefinable way a work of art sometimes does the artist.

Draw a line; draw a line that pleases you. And remember that it is not the artist's role to copy the outlines of things but to create a world of his own lines on paper." (pp.28-29)

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. Stop settling for what's good enough and start creating art that matters.

Every artist of importance creates his own world, with its own laws - creates and shapes it in his own shape and image, and no one else's. This is why it is difficult to fit the artist into a world that has already been created, a seven-day, fixed and solidified world: he will inevitably slip out of the set of laws and paragraphs, he will be a heretic.

I can't think of anything more rewarding than being able to express yourself to others through painting. Exercising the imagination, experimenting with talents, being creative; these things, to me, are truly the windows to your soul.

Creativity is very self-indulgent.

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

Don't worry about how you 'should' draw it. Just draw it the way you see it.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

I just want to paint and say what I'm going to say.

An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.

Art is the daughter of freedom.

They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.

Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.

No age is compelled to take its beauty from preceding epochs.

Art is I; science is we.

The freedom of every artist is essential.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity.

Always be different; don't follow the rules. Don't do what anyone tells you. Don't use the same sounds as people; don't use the same drums as people.