Feist Quotes

There's always been an ongoing struggle between commerce and art.

I work so I don't need to make rent through my songs, and I think if more people engaged with music without needing it to provide for their welfare, you're not beholden to anyone.

When I begin, theoretically and practically I can smear anything I want on the canvas. Then there's a condition I have to react to, by changing it or destroying it.

There was a point I could have just churned out the spot and spin paintings for ever and laughed all the way to the bank.

I gotta make a living. I make no bones about that. Most actors do. But within that context, I've never not tried to make something as fresh and alive as I possibly could make it.

When I started off as an actor, the last thing I wanted to do in the world was make money. I was under the impression, when I started off as an actor, that the more money I made, the more it would diminish from my creativity and my capacity to be an artist.

As a creative individual, I really go out of my way to avoid the corporate scene in terms of songwriting. If the first question is how much money is it going to make, I'm going to be in trouble anyway.

It’s also true that I might have never made Taxi Driver [1976] were it not for the success of Alice [Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1974]. The question of commercialism is a source of worry. Must one make a choice, must it be a matter of either setting your sights on winning an Academy Award and becoming a millionaire, or making only the movies you want to make and starving to death?

I'm in a very good place to make records. Needing to make money off music is very dangerous.

Our responsibility as artists is to challenge ourselves.

Every artist has to grow, and has to challenge themselves with a new form of expression.

I've never made a movie to make money. I've never made a painting to make money.

I want to change things with everything I do, not for the sake of changing things, but for the sake of taking greater and greater risks, or how minimalist I might be able to be, or how I can involve elements or ingredients in music videos that are not musical, for instance.

I wouldn't think a blues album would be that commercially successful, but I don't really care. I'd do it for the love of blues, not for the money. I've got plenty of money.

The artists I look up to are the ones who push their own limits.

Miley Cyrus is about making money. Amanda Palmer is about making art.

My bar for being successful is being able to do movies that really mean something to me and being able to make a living off of that.

The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you.

I feel like every artist has an opportunity to create something new and to challenge themselves to reach out to a new crowd.

I would urge all bands that say they only care about credibility and don't care about money to send Gene Simmons every dollar that they don't want. I'd be happy to take it off them.

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

With Lady Antebellum, there's always pressure. It's hard for commerce not to rear its ugly head when you're making decisions.

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

I realised that success and pure creativity are not very compatible. The more successful you become, the more you become a product of something that generates money. Instead of being able to move forward freely and do what you really wish, you find yourself stuck and obliged to repeat yourself and your previous success.

If you're making music strictly to make money, you might as well find another job.