Saul Zaentz Quotes

If you paint a picture and I paint a picture, we each want to do it our own way. And we'll stand or fall on whatever we did.

All our forms are unique - movies, music and literature - and you have to leave the person who is doing it to do their best.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

Write what you think is good, is the whole of the law.

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

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

But I'm the only one who can paint the moon, because I'm the only one who knows whether that's right or not.

Find your own specific voice in filmmaking and go for it. Either people will get it or they won't and that's what it's all about.

I learned early in my writing career that if I try to tailor a song for someone else, I'm usually off base. They're usually looking for something from you with your character.

Just trying to be different - when I hear something - I don't like to go trampling on other people's sounds.

I never set out to make a movie that was everything to everybody; if that were the case, we could all just take a picture of a tree and agree that the tree is beautiful and move on with our lives. I wouldn't even need to show up.

I love when people have their own creative vision, when a person stands out and tries different things.

Being essentially a creator, I never set out to shock, always thinking about creating my work and not about the benefits it could produce.

I would never tell someone else how to use their platform, because I think I'm much more comfortable allowing the work that I do to speak for itself.

It's funny, but no matter how good an artist is, it's not until he stands on his own two feet and sticks to his guns that things are going to come together.

In my short career, I tend not to repeat myself. I have no interest in redoing something. Sometimes that makes people angry, and maybe it's not the best thing for me commercially. But it's the best thing for me artistically, and it's the best thing for my heart.

My advice to new artists is to not follow a trend, but to start one. By that, I mean to not be tempted to do what business people might suggest to you, to jump on the bandwagon, but to be strong.

The key to artistry is being able to say stuff the way other people can't.

Art is such a personal experience, I really try to make my own thing.

Draw a line; draw a line that pleases you. And remember that it is not the artist's role to copy the outlines of things but to create a world of his own lines on paper." (pp.28-29)

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

I don't chase what everyone else is looking for. Being creative is all about you.

You've got to concentrate on the business of entertaining and writing songs. Always think different from the next person. Don't ever do a song as you heard somebody else do it.

I am an artist who's just tryin' to do something different, and basically not caring about everybody's opinions and wanting to follow what everybody else is doing. At the same time, I know when to be serious, but I know when to joke.