Cyril Connolly Quotes

The first essential to success in the art you practice is respect for the art itself.

O painter, take care lest the greed for gain prove a stronger incentive than renown in art, for to gain this renown is a far greater thing than is the renown of riches.

It is not right for painters to think that painting is like prostitution, that 'first you do it for love, then you do it for others, and finally you do it for money.

I'm just following my own art, and I just think that the only thing I can do to be a great artist is do the best job I can in whatever movie I do.

If it is the mark of the artist to love art before everything, to renounce everything for its sake, to think all the sweet human things of life well lost if only he may attain something, do some good, great work - then I was never an artist.

I'll be honest, I worry sometimes about what I've done. I have tied my whole person to my art and, whatever it takes to get that hook, I will go there and do it.

I couldn't just hand in any old rubbish - I can't go on tour and sing something for three years if I don't believe in it.

I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artists’ relationship is essentially with their work — not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience.

You should always make it like it's your last film. That's my personal belief. Every filmmaker is going to have another belief... That's the only way I know to try to make a film that might be good. You got to take it real seriously like it's your last thing.

I put everything I can into a record. That's what art is for. I take a risk every time I do one with my whole being.

I will die for the art & what I believe in. The art ain't always gon' be polite.

There's a notion of art in this country that you have to be nutty or special or "called" in order to be an artist. I believe the questions everyone should ask themselves are, "Do you want to do it? Are you willing to do it poorly? Are you willing to do the work of doing it? Are you willing to persist when everybody tells you it's silly?" If you're willing to do that, then you can do it.

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

An artist's career doesn't happen in the cycle of one week of news. An artist's career happens in a lifetime, and if you're a true artist you're willing to die for what you believe in.

Writing is too hard not to do exactly what you want to do. It's a very draining and agonizing process for me, and I don't want to live with any piece of work that I don't believe in completely. I have to believe completely in what I'm doing. It has grown organically out of my own experience.

You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in.

In order to create art today, you have to compromise your art somewhat and be a businessman.

Art is rare and sacred and hard work, and there ought to be a wall of fire around it.

I belong to the scarce minority of artists who work in good faith, around whom the phenomenal world vanishes, as it happens to the mystics when they give themselves to prayer.

I knew a gentleman that I had worked with over the years, who is no longer with us, and was a great influence in my life named Cachao - a Cuban musician, composer, arranger, and creator of the Mambo. The integrity of the journey is what's important - how you conduct yourself in the process. That's what Cachao was always about. He had great integrity, great dignity, was very humble, and dedicated to his art.

Beethoven in c minor has come to symbolize his artistic character...where he seems to be most impatient of any compromise.

If you love writing or making music or blogging or any sort of performing art, then do it. Do it with everything you've got. Just don't plan on using it as a shortcut to making a living.

If an Artist love his Art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in his own.

If a good cartoonist can make a living making his comics, he'll continue to do that; the lesser insincere cartoonist that gets a lot of press will fall by the wayside eventually.

Composers and musicians have always starved and, as this is a sentimental country, we think the tradition should be continued.