John Frusciante Quotes

Acting is a creative process, and directing and music. I think creative people - and I take myself as a creative person and it doesn't mean you have to be an actor, a musician, or a painter - but I think if you are in a creative profession or a creative business you do have a heightened awareness.

I think that artists don't make art - the art makes itself through us. I'm not the doer. I'm just along for the ride. Acting really reminds me of that because I don't write the words; I don't make the decisions. That's the director. Narcissism is a tragic condition. It must be so miserable to live trapped in a reflection that only includes the smallest version of our identities. Our true identities should have no bounds and no limits.

I'm grateful to have the chance to be inspired by the incredible artists that are out there.

My mother is an artist, and I have a strong visual sense. I almost always choose the cover art for my books. I've learned that the more I collaborate, like by having someone do a soundtrack to one of my books, the more I see my own work differently.

I'm a happy camper when I'm doing both: writing and art every day, along with a dose of reading and adventures into what else is being done by other artists/writers and poets. Like breathing. I've written poems or fictions to go with a painting. The source for the inspiration of the art often eludes me.

Music is the doorway that has led me to drawing, photography, and writing.

I've always said I'm more influenced in what I do by artists, and how they work, how they think, and the freedom they're given to work and think, than I really am by other writers.

My whole life, I've always had to be surrounded by creative things. I find it relaxing to be in touch with creations by other people.

So much of what we do as artists is a combination of personal experience and imagination, and how that all creeps into your work is not so linear.

Artists are like everybody else.

All artists draw from their lives, except they mask it and camouflage it... which is the smarter way to do it.

I'm always pulling and really feeding off of my inspirations. I think most musicians do.

No one should do drugs thinking that they will make a great record. That's not the way to go, for sure.

The more I get to know more artists, the more they inspire me.

I don't write about nature, but I'm definitely very inspired by it.

I like drawing from all kinds of territories in art.

It's fun because you can escape and learn about what other people's minds have created. It inspires you to think maybe you could come up with a creature yourself. I like that.

I feel that I am much freer if I'm on my own, but I'm sure that there are a lot of painters who would perhaps be even more inventive if they had people round them... I find that if I am on my own I can allow the paint to dictate to me. So the images that I'm putting down on the canvas dictate the thing to me and it gradually builds up and comes along.

Lena Dunham or Miranda July, those people are sort of thinking about their work in a slightly different way than I do, where their whole body is a seed of what they're creating. I can't imagine watching Miranda's movies with anybody else playing her role, she's so integral. But for me, it feels more like every story is really individual. If I thought of something else, or thought it should be my body representing it, I'd fold my body into it. But most of the time I'm writing to get something out of my body.

I don't understand how people live without creating.

I think being an artist is having the courage to be original. Many great artists, including Picasso, have all been influenced by the great master paintings... And then finally, they leap, they take off... they become themselves. Then it looks like they just came out of nowhere. Just like 'Pow!'

I still hope that more people can create art, even though artistic genres may never be the most popular or money-making genres. But the thing is, I think art is more long-lasting. It stays in people, and it changes them.

Dude, if you want to be a great musician, you have to try heroin. You'll see. It's like being back in the womb.

I think whatever you believe in affects whatever you express, whatever you create. It shapes your morality in some way. But I don't think that's something that you have to shove down people's throats. I'd rather keep it in the background, and I'd rather people came to the music in an unprejudiced way. I'm glad, in a sense, that most people don't know about me, what I do, much. I'd rather they hear the music, and then say, "I wonder what kind of person created this."

The life that I live and the experiences that I have always affect what comes out of me creatively. I think that's what makes music real.