Andrei Tarkovsky Quotes

There's nothing as perfect as the initial idea. And the only reason I write and direct is to protect the writing, because that's what's most precious.

I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff.

I'd rather not make films than make bad ones.

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise.

I'm not ready to do any compromises for my work.

I'm very serious about what I write and who I allow to produce the music, because I want to make sure it's a true album, and not just something pushed out there to create hype and more fame for myself.

I always believed in the music we did and that's why it was uncompromising.

I am not going to do a film based on a bad scenario just to make a big Hollywood film or work with Hollywood stars.

It's good to please the network, but you really just have to tell the stories you want to tell, and if you try to please other people, it ends up starting to water stuff down. Those decisions we have to make are hard, but we usually just err on the side of 'What would we want to see?'

I decided to do whatever I could to make sure the business side of music didn't intrude on the creative part.

If you don't like my work in 'The Affair,' that's fine, but I'll stand by the work because I felt that everything that went on camera was what I intended to go on camera.

I've always said that I would only ever release something that I would want to listen to as a fan.

I can't do a film just for the sake of it.

I really believe in not compromising your art. I feel like I've never compromised my art.

I stick to my guns - that's what keeps me going as an artist. Stevie Wonder never changed from what he wanted to do, and each new album that came along was dope.

I want to be choosier. I can't let quality take a back seat... not after 'Kaaka Muttai.'

It doesn't matter even if I am slow or fast as long as my films are honest and carries my integrity.

A lot of my songs, they're like puzzle pieces, and there's just one way to put them together. You could, if you needed to, get the scissors out and cut up things to make them work. But I don't want to do that.

The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth.

The writer concerned more with technique than truth becomes a technician, not an artist.

Art requires, above all things, a suppression of self, a subordination of one's self to an idea.

I'm developed as an artist to accept the fact there are different points of view, but I believe in what I do and I have to stay with that.

I'm a believer in the notion that artists who do good work believe in the ideas of extremes.

There were the usual types of things that happen, in a production, like logistical bullshit, and this and that and the other. That's the sort of stuff that happened. But I never felt, in a creative sense, that we were ever veering into a place that I hadn't signed on for.

I'm not just going to accept something because it's a lot of money. I'm an artist; content is incredibly important to me.