Stanley Kubrick Quotes

Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.

When I taught art, I was always asked, 'How do you know you're an artist? What makes you an artist?' And to me, it's like breathing. You don't question if you breathe; you have to breathe. So if you wake up in the morning, and you have to realize an idea, and there's another idea, and another, maybe you are really an artist.

Artists are controlled by the life that beats in them, like the ocean beats on the shore.

The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.

Artists, like yourself, are born with a need to express that's just innate.

Art is mind and heart and touch as much and more than it is mere instrument, technique - without which however it cannot exist at all.

Great art can only be created out of love.

Frustration is one of the great things in art. Satisfaction is nothing.

My work is never intellectual. I never make a negative unless emotionally moved by my subject.

I always wonder what drives us as Artists.

Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument.

Whatever the source of emotion that drives me to create, I want to give it a form which has some connection with the visible world, even if it is only to wage war on that world....I want my paintings to be able to defend themselves to resist the invader, just as though there were razor blades on all surfaces so no one could touch them without cutting his hands.

I would still be reading out loud. I think that if you are any kind of an artist, then validation is just sort of... it can be a result, but you're going to do the work anyway. Because you're just wired that way. It's so engrained, it's such a part of your personality that you don't just stop doing it. Eventually I'll retire on some level, eventually no one will want to buy my books or a ticket to see me read, it's inevitable that's going to happe

That's the difference between the serious artist and the craftsman--the craftsman can take material and because of his abilities do a professional job of it. The serious artist, like Proust, is like an object caught by a wave and swept to shore. He's obsessed by his material; it's like a venom working in his blood and the art is the antidote.

How certain human beings are able to create works of art is a mystery, and why they should wish to do so, at a great cost to themselves usually, is another mystery. Works are not created by one's life; every life is rich in material.

It's hard to predict and to say what goes on inside the minds of an artist, but that's what makes them an artist. That sense of creativity. That thing that makes them tick is probably the very thing that pushes them to the extremes that sometimes can cause, you know, fatalities and things that, you know, that end up not being good.

To me that's what art is about - when you don't really have any control over your desires to do it.

Every good writer or filmmaker has something eating at them, right? That they can't quite get off their back. And so your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions.

What is it that turns people into artists? It often comes from some kind of pain or angst, a need to understand or express something. It very rarely comes from confidence, being raised by parents who want to hear what you have to say and wants to encourage you.

To make art you need to be inspired.

That impulse I think is a form of love. Poetry is something that comes to you, rather than your having to work out its form beforehand.

Art is the expression of the artist´s overflowing soul.

I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artists’ relationship is essentially with their work — not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience.

I want to draw and study a few things closely by feeling, not thinking.

I gave myself over to music and art a long time ago, so I don't get to relax and I don't get to sit still. The best I can do is constantly create my own environment so it benefits what I need to accomplish in the next step.