Wilfrid Sheed Quotes

People think it's suspect and self-indulgent to make art, and I don't think that's true. Some people think you should be busy making something that you can sell in the marketplace, and if nobody wants to buy it, it must be crap. And that's not true.

I don't believe that artists really are interested in money. That's not the motivation for art.

When you are older, you realise that everything else is just nothing compared to painting and drawing.

As an artist, you find at different times you want to do different things.

I think a lot of times we think of music as being different from other art forms. You would never ask a sculptor or painter, 'Go paint this because you'll get paid more,' you know what I mean?

Money messes up everything. It ruins art. The second you start putting price tags on this stuff, it's... Art isn't for just the wealthy. It's for everybody to enjoy.

The market kills more artistic passion than anything else.

For the serious artist does not satisfy needs

The real artist while he paints does not think of the sale, only of the need to make a beautiful living thing.

I write a song because I want to. I think the moment you start writing it to make money, you're starting to kill yourself artistically.

Any combining, mixing, adding, diluting, exploiting, vulgarizing, or popularizing of abstract art deprives art of its essence and depraves the artist's artistic consciousness. Art is free, but it is not a free-for-all.

Vulgarity is not as destructive to an artist as snobbery.

What's any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What's left of the man when the work's done but a shambles of apology.

But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money?

All children are artists, and it is an indictment of our culture that so many of them lose their creativity, their unfettered imaginations, as they grow older.

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise. As an actor, you're giving it up, you're at the mercy of so many other people.

I have very little interest in the bottom line or signing artists to help make the label profit. That's a lucky, unique position to be in, but it all comes out in the wash.

Art functioning as propaganda is not art.

The ivory tower of the artist may be the only stronghold left for human values, cultural treasures, man’s cult of beauty.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.

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.

One of the things I love about doing things that are creative is that I feel like it's my right as an artist not to be affected by the reactions of those people that are going to hear my songs.

Every artist, every scientist, every writer must decide now where he stands. The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.

What we also need to have a discussion on the philosophy of art: so we must ask what is it that we want in the first place? Is it just about saying and doing whatever you want, or is it about something more? We should let the artist be free, but we must also question how exactly he deals with freedom. Is it arts for elevation or arts for destruction? Is there dignity in the process?

Visuals are as artistic as sounds, so being serious about both isn't a contradiction to me.