Mark Z. Danielewski Quotes

So far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was, is, and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality.

My work is literally my voice.

The most important thing for me as an artist is having an identity.

People choose whatever projects they've seen that I've done over the years, and whichever one is their favorite is the only one they care about. But I realized that none of those were my voice or representative of what my thoughts and feelings were.

I don't want people to just hand me music and be like, 'Here, you sound good on this. Sing it.' I want to be able to say, 'This is me.'

That's important for artists to remember: some people would like to be spokespeople, but others would like their art to speak.

There are lots of artists in the world. But there's only one you. And the only person who has your point of view is you. If you decide not to make things, all you've done is deprive the world of all the stuff that only you could have brought to it.

Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality.

I have a philosophy that everything you write doesn't have to be good for everybody. There are going to be people that get irritated by some of the things I write-including my parents. And then there are going to be people that you draw in because of the pointedness of certain things.

Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art.

I always write the pieces I want to write.

Personally, I feel that in my own work I wanted to look programmed or impersonal but I don't really believe I am being impersonal when I do it. And I don't think you could do this.

The whole point in developing your own style is to find your own voice.

As long as you're true to you, you believe it and you make others believe it, then what you're doing is just art. If you give everybody a blank canvas and some paint, not everybody's picture is going to be exactly the same, but it's still art. I just do what I do.

I write the way I write.

I don't want to look exactly the same in everything I do. And if I'm not identifiable, then that can be a blessing or a curse. But I'm fine with it. Because at the end of the day, I'm still working, and I'm enjoying what I do.

There's something about YouTube, where you're not being anybody but yourself. You have the opportunity to start as yourself from the very beginning. From the very first video, you choose what you say, and you choose what's right and wrong for your presentation of yourself.

Directors tell me what to do, and I kind of just put my own twist to it, just to get inside my personality that everybody doesn't really get to see - my off-the-court interests and the way I act. It's just me.

When I left the Royal College, I decided I would only make paintings that I would want to look at myself, that felt close to my life.

I think this, I think basically I'm not interested in people following my work or making work like my work.

I had to find my own language in jewelry. That was important to me; it really had to be what I would love to have myself.

But at a certain point, you have to take your influence and find your own voice if you want to become a relevant artist.

In expressing so completely his own type, Mr. Yeats presents us with the case for integrity. If we can express eventually our own scholastic mentality in verse, I believe that our art will lead us not towards, but away from, English art.

I understand it for marketing purposes, but I've always hated defining myself with a genre. Nothing feels broad enough.

Honestly, I never felt like I wasn't an artist on my own. I always felt like the music I made was mine, whether it was part of a collaboration with people.