Charles Saatchi Quotes

It is none of anyone's business how I make my films or my creative partnerships.

Creators understand that their emotions are not necessarily a sign of the circumstances. They understand that in desperate circumstances they may experience joy, and in jubilant circumstances they may feel regret. They know that any emotion will change. But because emotions are not the centerpiece of their lives, they do not pander to them. They create what they create, not in reaction to their emotions but independent of them. On days filled with the depths of despair, they can create. On days filled with the heights of joy, they can create.

I'm really lucky that my record companies have been patient with me and leave me alone and give me the time to make it right in my mind.

The most wonderful time to be in the art world was in the sixties, because it wasn't a business - there was no business of doing art.

Seattle's support system got me through those early, difficult years. It was a very funky, very friendly, very relaxed place that had it all for a writer.

I let people make remarks about me, but it doesn't touch me, all those remarks.

Believing in yourself and what you do is so important. It took me a long time to find that confidence. If you're an artist and you're taking risks, then you're doing something right if some people don't get it.

But I found a lot of artists at the Cedar Bar were difficult for me to talk to.

If I spent my time worrying about what other people would think of my work, I would be too self-conscious to write.

I've never hung around with any models. I've always hung around with my friends from school and kept myself to myself.

Anyway I feel myself a bit on the edge on the art world, but I don't mind, I'm just pursuing my work in a very excited way. And there isn't really a mainstream anymore, is there?

For this album I was determined to do it my way. Take my time. I'm gonna win, lose or draw on my own.

Examining other people's motivations, other people's language and other people's way of interacting is much more fascinating to me than spending a lot of time worrying about my own. I've said, 'What other people think of me is none of my business.'

If I feel anxious every time someone is staring at me, well, I can't control what they stare at, but my reaction is, I'm just not going to go outside the house. I'm going to stay in and chill. And when I do go out, I understand what comes along with that.

When you start a movie, it's not like other kinds of work that you have when you know your boss for years or colleagues for years. You're meeting everyone, mostly, for the first time. You have to get comfortable with those people so you can perform, because the first thing that is going to shut you down is any kind of anxiety.

I know I'm not gonna please everybody when I make a record. I don't let that affect any of my decisions.

Fear is just not a part of my life - so much so that if it's involved in somebody else's life and they're close to me, I won't be around them.

Success gave me confidence as an artist. And now I'm able to do what I want without anybody thinking it's dumb.

I don't think you can spend too much time as an artist believing what other people think.

What I am sad about is that there is now, in America, no equivalent to the art circuit.

I think you have to be very secure as an actor to escape yourself - to revisit someone's past, whether you're portraying another person or creating someone, and then to come back to who you are and not bring those emotions with you.

The Chinese art world does not exist. In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination.

People don't step outside themselves and make the film they want to make, because they're afraid of the reaction. But once you get that reaction and have lived through it, there's nothing they can do to get you down.

It don't matter if you put 'The Dance' out, or any old George Strait song. Someone is going to think that it's awful. You gotta be able to just sit back and kind of laugh it off and know you're doing exactly what you wanna do, and if people don't like it, then it's not really my place to tell them they have to like it.

Knowing what you want is not a shortcoming. Let people deal with their own anxieties.