Maureen Johnson Quotes

You don't know how much artists go through to make it look so easy. It's all in the practice.

Becoming an artist is not empirical; it's not about hard work. You have to put the work in, but that doesn't mean you're going to make it.

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.

Nothing prepares you for making art except making art. You have to do it to get better.

All great artists and thinkers are great workers.

The fools who write articles about me think that one morning I suddenly decided to write and began to produce masterpieces. There is no special trick about writing, or painting either. I wrote constantly for 15 years before I produced anything with any solidity to it.

A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.

The secret to a masterpiece is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.

By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

No writer, painter, or actor - no artist - is ever handed a sharp knife (although a few people are handed almighty big ones; the name we give to the artist with the big knife is 'genius'), and we hone with varying degrees of zeal and aptitude.

Genius begins beautiful works, but only labor finishes them.

The great piano virtuoso Paderewski was once playing before an audience of the rich and the royal. After a brilliant performance, an elegant lady waxed ecstatic over the great artist. She said, "Ah Maestro, you are a genius!" Paderewski tartly replied, "Ah yes, madam, but before I was a genius I was a clod!" What he was saying was that his present acclaim was not handed to him on a silver platter. He, too, was once a little boy laboriously practicing his scales. And even at his peak, behind every brilliant performance there were countless hours of practice and preparation.

My sister-in-law is a painter, and I'll say, how long did it take you to paint that painting. She'll say, It took me maybe three days, but it took me all my life to get the skills to paint that painting.

I feel I have to work hard to nurture whatever talent I have as an actor. I feel like it's not natural to me. So I don't take it for granted... What I think is my natural ability - which is writing - I think I totally take that for granted.

I really believe that if you practice enough you could paint the 'Mona Lisa' with a two-inch brush.

I look at my pictures, and I think, 'Well, how did I do that?'

A secondhand wardrobe hand clothes doesn't make one an artist. Neither do a hair-trigger temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, or HIV. I hate to say it - none of these make one an artist. They can help, but just as being gay doesn't make one witty... the only thing that makes one an artist is making art.

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

There's nothing romantic about my work... I don't believe in inspiration. I believe that you get to your desk, you stay there, you work, you think of nothing else. You write and you write, and in the end, you write something good.

Conte is correct - talent needs to be nurtured on a daily basis with hard work.

The heart of creativity is discipline.

An amateur may not be an artist, though an artist should be an amateur.

I think when one has talent one finally breaks through; so don't pass up any opportunity to do some work.

If you want to be good at anything, you have to work hard at it. It doesn't just fall from the sky. I work every day at trying to improve my writing, and I really enjoy it. Nothing fascinates me more than putting words together, and seeing how a collection of words can produce quite a profound effect.