Xavier Dolan Quotes

You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.

I don't think you can be taught how to make art. You can be coached, but on a fundamental level you have to figure it out for yourself. You have to learn how your own mind works, figure out your own relationship to the art; you essentially have to invent it completely for yourself.

The individual - man as a man, man as a brain, if you like - interests me more than what he makes because I've noticed that most artists only repeat themselves.

With every project you do, you bring out a part of yourself, and it seems to be quite a good way of expanding a person.

I went to art school, I think it helped me a great deal because it taught me who I am.

My best efforts were some modern things that looked like very lousy Matisses. Thank God I had the sense to realize they were lousy, and leave Paris.

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

Joanne' is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.

It took me three albums to get the confidence and to find out what I could do that made me different from other people. And the first record, really, was a process of trying.

As an artist, you keep learning. You draw out different parts of you.

I've been adjusting to what it means to be a songwriter, figuring out what I like about it and what I don't like about it and what it means to me as opposed to other people.

We are living in a world where the individual must learn to command the raw materials of expression. He must not be dependent all the time on the ready-made, the finished product. It's the transferring, the changing of the raw into what is the expression of your own self – the whole joy and satisfaction and frustration of life is built into this.

Every person has contributed to me as a human, but a lot of the characters I do are ones I created.

When a young person asks me: 'Can you show me how to do this?' I simply answer: 'No, I am going to show you how to do it. But then, you'll have to learn with your own technique, your own way of moving, your style, your abilities and your limitations. You are going to learn to be yourself, not someone else.

You just do what you love, and then a style happens later on.

Each artist comes to the painting or sculpture because there he can be told that he, the individual, transcends all classes and flouts all predictions. In the work of art, he finds his uniqueness confirmed.

You know how writers are... they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves.

In order to arrive at a personal style, you have to have a technique to begin with.

At first you're doing it for yourself, it's about what sounds good to you. It's about expressing yourself. Then you get comfortable as an artist and you find yourself and people get familiar.

It's always been most important for me to figure out "my space" rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute. Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself-- and that's essential for any artist, I think.

It is by losing himself in the objective, in inquiry, creation, and craft, that a man becomes something.

It was difficult to get into my friends' rock bands when I was a teenager. They somehow didn't see the need for an accordion player. That's when I realized that I had to find my own path in life.

I've changed my style constantly, so I'm not sure I have one defined style, except perhaps style of subject matter. But you learn as you go, I suppose.

There is really no practical help that one can offer: it is a matter of self-discovery, of one's own conviction, or working with one's own work; your style is what seems natural to you. It is a long process of discovery, one that never ends. I am working at it, and will be as long as I live.

I developed a pretty unusual style, I think.