Neil Gaiman Quotes

I, in the end, make art for myself.

I've learned to take jobs as an actress that is meaningful to me because I've never taken a job for the money.

Happy is he who looks only into his work to know if it will succeed, never into the times or the public opinion; and who writes from the love of imparting certain thoughts and not from the necessity of sale - who writes always to the unknown friend.

I don't work for money any longer. I work for pride.

I never think about what others are doing. I do a film for myself, not others.

I only write music for myself, I don't try and appeal to anyone else.

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.

I don't write for a particular audience. I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.

Everything I have done in my career I have done from my values and doing things the way I like to do. So winning doesn't matter the world for me.

You make you work for yourself. It's the feeling of, 'If nobody ever saw it, that'd be fine, too.'

When I sat down to write 'Rules of Civility,' I didn't write it for anybody but myself. I wasn't trying to make my mark or make money. I wasn't anxious about feeding my kids or whether my father would be proud of me.

When you're working in service to a big project, there's always the question of, 'Is there total freedom to do what I think is right artistically, or is this a job?' It's okay for things to be a job. I'm perfectly comfortable working. I don't need to sit around and quench whatever personal artistic thirst I have at all times.

I read, with a kind of hopeless envy, histories and legends of people of our craft who "do not write for money." It must be a pleasant experience to be able to cultivate so delicate a class of motives for the privilege of doing one's best to express one's thoughts to people who care for them. Personally, I have yet to breathe the ether of such a transcendent sphere. I am proud to say that I have always been a working woman, and always had to be.

The highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. Creative effort spent for any other reason than the joy of being in that light filled space, love, god, whatever we want to call it, is lacking in integrity. . .

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.

There's only one good reason to be a writer-we can't help it! We'd all like to be rich, famous and successful, but if those are our goals, we're off on a wrong foot...I just wanted to earn enough money so I could work at home on my writing.

Of all the reasons for wanting to write, the only one that nurtures us through time is love of the work itself.

Get a day job, make your money from that, and write to please yourself.

My primary thing is to make a painting, not necessarily to make a painting to sell for gazillions of dollars, but just to make a painting.

Never play anything that don't sound right. You might not make any money, but at least you won't get hostile with yourself.

Money is a good thing and it's obviously useful, but to work only for money or fame would never interest me.

Awards are so unnecessary because I think we get so much out of our work just by doing it. The work is a reward in itself.

Satisfying myself is the point in filmmaking, in my mind.

I have never been motivated by money in my life. You can't make choices based on what the financial return might be.

I just like to do work that inspires me, and I don't pay any attention to whether it's a high- or low-budget movie.