Seth Godin Quotes

You can have integrity with your art, but worrying about integrity doesn't pay the bills.

Whatever I was writing at the time, I knew there was no market for it and never would be, because there’s never a market for true art, so my main concern was always to have a job that didn’t require me to write or think.

All art is a struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous.

I'm in an area where I want to make music that I'm thrilled with, but, you know, I do have to worry about putting food on the table. I'm in that position where I cannot always be gauging what things might become. I have to look ahead, because I'm cautious.

The arts are not a way to make a living.

To be an artist is not about fame; it's about art, which is this intangible thing that has got to have lots of integrity, whereas being famous doesn't really take any integrity. But I think you have to admit that you want to be famous, otherwise you can't be an artist. Art and fame together are like a desire to live forever.

What I wanted to be and who I am is a singer and a songwriter. I wanted to be onstage, and I wanted the world to hear my music. The product of that is fame and the disgusting celebrity that goes along with it. But celebrity does not equal creativity.

My musical ambitions are not that great. I make music I like, and thankfully - for my ability to make an (fairly...) honest living - at least some others like the music too.

I think that everyone who does music, and everyone who does art, or everyone who decides at a young age that they're gonna do that, is someone who feels like an outsider. The world is not really set up for that.

I've had different opportunities in my life, but I've tried to maintain the spirit of an amateur. Our culture roots everything in the barometer of success and how much money you make. But if you really just aspire to a life in the arts, it's really not a barometer at all.

In the last workshop I taught, a woman flew in from Thailand. She's a medical doctor in Bangkok. I asked her in her one-on-one session where she wanted photography to be in her life.Did she want a second career? Was it about earning money? Or was it art? And she said "None of those. I want photography to be serious in my life." It would be like someone wanting music, like piano playing, to be a richer, deeper, and maybe even harder experience.

Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.

Art for art's sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden. It is the best evidence we can have of our dignity.

Nothing has a more sinister effect on art than the artist's desire to prove that he's good. The terrible temptation of idealism! You must achieve mastery over your idealism, over your virtue as well as over your vice, aesthetic mastery over everything that drives you to write in the first place - your outrage, your politics, your grief, your love!

There are some people who want me and my husband to stay where it is safe and draw a paycheck every week instead of what we are doing (which is creating and sharing our art with others). The truth is that there are people in this world - Dave and I being two - who would die a slow painful death if stuck in an office and made to do the kind of work that we are not made to do.

Follow your heart, and your pleasure in art. Don’t do what you think is going to be making you money, or what you’re parents want you to do, or what that beautiful girl or guy thinks you should be doing. Do what you love. It’s going to lead to where you want to go. Go out there and make the world more beautiful. I know you can.

I understand wanting to do your craft. I understand wanting to have a passion for your art and for your ability to be an actor, to be a singer, to be a dancer - that I understand. Wanting to be famous - I don't get that. But that's where we're living right now.

I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time at my real work.

I don't want the world to give me anything for my books except money enough to save me from the temptation to write only for money.

When art is really great, it's really powerful, can really do something to you, make you feel more alive and make you feel more connected to something. If you don't feel like that when you do it, and you just make a movie to make money, that would be pretty boring to me. I just wouldn't do it. That would be like sitting in an office, which I don't want to do.

You've got to be in a place where you can put your guard down. I've got a long list of things I consider to be selling out. But amongst that list, one of them is when you make art without putting your guard down.

Write for the love of your art. Someplace down the road, the money, the fame, they'll come, but by that time you won't be thinking in terms of money or fame.

Art is certainly not a pursuit for anyone who wants to make money.

All I ever wanted to do was act. And pay my bills

Never go into debt to become a writer. Always find other ways to support yourself so you can do the work you truly love for the right reasons. Never ask your art to support you. If you ask your art to support you it will either end up comprised or you'll be disappointed with it. It's a lot to ask of creativity for it to provide for you financially. Find a scrappy way to get by and then do the work you love for the reasons you love.