Linus Torvalds Quotes

I hate to sound like a romantic adolescent, but I believe artists don't generally see art as a career choice; they simply can't overcome their desire to make art, and will live on little income for as long as they have to, before they start to sell their work - or give up and get a paying job.

I washed dishes so I could make movies. it was never a way for me to make money.

I am, as they say, the classic starving artist.

I don't think music is my job - I don't think about it that way, because I don't really get paid. There's no paycheck at the end; it's more of a 'whatever is left over' kind of situation.

I think it's harder than ever to be an artist. I think that you end up, especially as a middle-aged person, you pay such big consequences for saying, 'I'm just going to devote my life to making art,' or 'I'm going to devote my life to writing novels.' You end up with no resources.

Even if I'm making music for people for $20 a night, at least I'm making music.

But where there is no art show, I would still be painting.

I don't think there will ever be a time I don't write, and I hope there will never be a time I don't act.

It is not from choice that my life is music and nothing more, but when one is an artist what else can he be? When a whole lifetime is too short to attain the heights he wants to reach, how then can he devote any of the little time he has to things outside of his art?

You stand your ground and you perform your art. That's what the artist does. The artist is about perfection.

Those who are to follow the arts should have a training in what is called poverty. Given a comfortable middle-class start in life, the artist is almost sure to end up by becoming a bellyacher, constantly complaining because the public does not rush forward at once to proclaim him.

I was always an artist. I was a broker to earn a living, but I was always thinking about my art.

I want to be able to write, that's my first love and I don't want to deviate from it even though I probably could have made a lot more money.

I put all of my time into art because I couldn't go back to Jersey and work at Starbucks.

I come from theater, originally, and I've worked in many theaters where you make no money, whatsoever. If you got 3,000 people to see your production, it was great. So, I'm always about the work and I always want to strive for making the best story possible. I don't get hung up on trying to compare myself.

To express what is the most moral, healthful and beautiful in art this is the mission of the dancer, and to this I dedicate my life.

I wasn't afraid of being poor; I rather took it for granted. I was good at getting by with very little. I couldn't imagine sacrificing my writing to anything else.

I gave myself over to music and art a long time ago, so I don't get to relax and I don't get to sit still. The best I can do is constantly create my own environment so it benefits what I need to accomplish in the next step.

Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on.

I don't want to stop bringing out music.

Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.

Art is a jealous mistress.

I have seen no men in life loving their profession so much as painters, except, perhaps, actors, who, when not engaged themselves, always go to the play.

An artist might be attracted to hedonism, but of course an artist is not a hedonist. He's a worker, always.

A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.