Dervla Kirwan Quotes

You know what, if you compromise and do stuff that's not becoming to you as an artist, that's your fault.

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

I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people.

It's ironic, really, because I've spent the bulk of my career making my living in a very commercial realm: network television. And yet, my sensibilities don't necessarily line up with how I pay my rent.

Art is uncompromising and life is full of compromises.

I try to find the right director who won't compromise his or anyone else's integrity, and yet be political enough to give the studio what they want, yet put up a fight to maintain that integrity.

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

Jay-Z is as politically correct as some of the politicians. He's safe. There's points when you're acquiring financing, you make adjustments. He's made those adjustments. It's his choice. For me, it's not a necessity.

I'll bet Shakespeare compromised himself a lot; anybody who's in the entertainment industry does to some extent.

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

Nothing wrong with making money or doing what you need to do to sell, but I think it shows when you're writing something to pay the bills and when you're writing something because it's really your version of the world.

The trick of making movies in this culture is how to not give up everything that makes them worthwhile in order to get them made - and that's a tricky balance.

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

I never saw 'Titanic' as a springboard for bigger films or bigger pay cheques. I knew it could have been that, but I knew it would have destroyed me.

I had an attitude about some work, like television sitcoms. It was selling your soul.

The key is you don't want to control the controlled stuff too much and you don't want to be too free flowing in uncontrolled situations. That can be a contentious issue with some directors. The joy of my career is I've gotten to work with great directors who get that balance.

In a lot of ways, I wouldn't be an artist in another time. I need to exist in a time where high and low art mix easily.

I don't think that independent or off-beat films are not commercial, nor do I want to categorise them. At the end of the day, what matters is how much you compromise to please the masses. But, I am not someone who loves compromising. If there's a lot to give up on things that matter to me, I start losing interest.

I don't see Hollywood as the big enemy, because this is where the money is, and not all of the companies are doing studio movies. I'm not tempted to sell out. If I'm going to become well known, I want it to be for something I'm proud of.

I'm not an industry artist - I'm an artist in the industry.

One of my biggest heroes in music has been David Bowie. He's said, 'I'm going to be a painter now, or I'm going to do some films,' and his audience is very forgiving, because they understand him as an artist. Whether you agree or like the result, you respect that he's expressing his artistic feelings.

When people asked to buy my work I always said no. I'd had this rather rarefied idea that I didn't want money going through my head while I was making work. But after the car crash I realized that none of my work was owned by anyone. After that, I grew up a bit.

The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.

Fortunately, I'm able to make a living from comics, so I'm privileged enough to be quite choosy, though most cartoonists can't afford to be. It's really an uncomfortable situation, since I'm not an illustrator, though I do get calls from morally indefensible businesses offering me money to decorate their ambitions. It's extremely rare, almost unheard of, in fact, that I am asked to do a comic strip. Do writers get calls to pen Toyota advertisements? Do composers get asked to write chamber pieces about exercise machines?

On "Tonight" I think I was torn dreadfully between writing what I wanted to write, but keeping it in a style that would follow up what I had just done. That's where I feel I was untrue to myself as an artist . . . that album and, to a lesser extent, "Never Let Me Down."