Arturo O'Farrill Quotes

I'd love to do films, but I'd feel bad in my gut if I did anything just for the money. I want to wait for something I'm really passionate about, even if I don't work for a year.

That's what I've tried to do: I've tried to make music that I really love.

I'm just excited that I get to put out the music I love versus music just for the sake of it.

So the thing is to put out music for music's sake.

If people would like to come to my concerts I'd love them to come. And if they like the music that I make, I love that too. But I do not make music for other people. I make it to please myself.

A lot of times, you do independent films for passion because you may even lose money doing one, but it doesn't matter.

I'm not happy if I'm not making music; it's as simple as that. It's a need.

I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.

To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.

I'd rather be a poor singer/songwriter doing what I love than get rich from selling my soul.

We make music that we believe in. That's all it is.

I am just creating the music I enjoy to make, and people seem to enjoy it.

I want to create music that moves me, not just music that is going to get me famous or make someone at a label happy.

As an artist, you have to do what you feel passionate about. It has to be something you can connect with.

I used to think there was something dirty about being paid for something which is a sacred thing to do. I can't disconnect the act of writing music from the act of prayer. If anyone tries to stop me working, it feels like someone is trying to stop me from taking communion.

The market kills more artistic passion than anything else.

We don't play to be seen. I'm addicted to music, not audiences.

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.

I am not God. But I can only do my role here on this planet. The role I feel I was given since I was a kid was to be making art and I only wanted to give and I never let money be my God.

I'm not in competition with nobody. I want to make good music for my fans who want it, who enjoy it, who learn something from it. And that's what it is.

The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.

As an artist myself I don't like to be preached. I want to enjoy myself, so I kind of use that perspective to make music.

Art can be very political but that can't be the purpose of art, it can't be the driving force. It isn't with any of the books that I love, anyway.

The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.

Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter. ... I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.