Susannah McCorkle Quotes

I've never really thought of myself as just an actor; I always thought of myself as aspiring to be an artist, and an artist has to take risks and put himself on the line.

I didn't want to do the whole, get the hottest person thing. I wanted to make sure every record felt right.

I think you always have to go as an artist with instinct, I really do.

We've been working with the very best in the business. The studio really just let us alone to make the films.

Any system that sees aesthetics as irrelevant, that separates the artist from his product, that fragments the work of the individual, or creates by committee, or makes mincemeat of the creative process will, in the long run, diminish not only the product but the maker as well.

I'm just following my own art, and I just think that the only thing I can do to be a great artist is do the best job I can in whatever movie I do.

I don't really look at the charts at all. If anything, I try to out-do what I've done before. I try to make music that I like and I trust my own judgement with what will work with a wider audience. If you compare yourself to the charts, you lose perspective on what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Everyone is trying to make these huge songs; I just make things that I want to listen to. Music that I will be comfortable listening to 10 years from now, that's my only thing.

Whatever is about you that is translated into your art, that's gonna keep you completly original and fresh and I just think that, that's just the best advice I can give, to an artist creatively.

I don't pay much attention to the press. My films always get good reviews and bad reviews. I just try to make the best film I can.

There is no such thing as an artist - only the world, lit or unlit, as the world allows.

For me, art really starts with acceptance, self trust. Wherever you come to with art, it's perfect. You don't have to come with anything. What you bring to something is the art. That's where it's found. It's found within you.

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.

I'm American. I'm eclectic. I'm going to follow my musical passions. And if people don't like it, and it hurts my legacy, I'm not going to worry about that.

I am proud being an artist who takes risks, who would walk off a cliff artistically. I won't settle for commercial reasons.

I don't think I'm making any great statements, and I certainly don't think I'm making art.

Every time I make a movie, I'm prepared for it to become influential and career-defining - but I have no control over these things.

I'm not an artist who has an agenda that's set by the work.

I've been lucky enough to have had the luxury of being able to make the picture I've wanted to make each time on my own terms and without compromise.

You have to do what you need to do as an artist. You have to have that courage.

The best films come about through experimentation.

Sometimes you have to be a diva. All the artists I admire from Madonna to Whitney to Mariah have all been called divas. If you are strong, if you have vision, if you are an artist, you have to do what you believe in. And if you get called a diva for it, then so what.

It's nice to stay up nights worrying about the material, and not about the investors who gave you $10 million to do your musical.

I open myself up every time I walk on screen and give you everything that I am. There are parts of me that are in every movie that I've done. That to me is what my job is.

Despite whatever commercial kind of success you might have or radio success, I don't want to do something just to get as many people as possible to listen.