Ani DiFranco Quotes

You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts.

Art is why I get up in the morning but my definition ends there. You know I don't think its fair that I'm living for something I can't even define.

I don't believe that artists really are interested in money. That's not the motivation for art.

I don't know what drives me, but I wake up in the morning, and I want to participate in the creative cultural conversation.

As an artist, you have to do what you feel passionate about. It has to be something you can connect with.

I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artists’ relationship is essentially with their work — not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience.

Great art can only be created out of love.

Obsession is beautiful. It's what makes art.

If something happened where I couldn't write music anymore, it would kill me. It's not just a job. It's not just a hobby. It's why I get up in the morning.

Not that painting would have been a release. The reason for doing it is the desire to create. I've got to do it! I've seen that, I can still remember it, I've got to paint it.

I just want to make good music. That's it. That's what I care about.

Music has always been a part of me and art in general. I love visual art as well.

If I'm inspired and music inspires me, then I will continue to play it.

There are two kinds of artists in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them, and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the beauty that has awakened their own admiration.

I feel fiery in my life. I feel fiery in my art.

Why an artist loves what they do is often so hard to describe.

I love cinema and creating new things, but essentially, I am creating all this because I want people to see it.

As an artist, I often wonder what my purpose is or why I do what I do.

In the domain of art there is no light without heat.

To make art you need to be inspired.

An original is a creation motivated by desire.

Picasso says that an artists paints not to ask a question but because he has found something and he wants to share—he cannot help it—what he has found.

I once asked a distinguished artist what place he gave to labor in art. "Labor," he in effect said, "is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art." Turning then to another--"And you," I inquired, "what do you consider as the great force in art?" "Love," he replied. In their two answers I found but one truth.

What I say to an artist is, 'When you can't paint - paint.

From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.