Joseph Gordon-Levitt Quotes

I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.

I like the idea of not having to do stuff for the money, and if I want to, I can pick indie projects for the rest of my life and be quite happy doing that.

There are right and wrong reasons for doing solo projects, and this album was done for the right reasons. At the time there was no Judas Priest and I certainly wasn't going to hang my hat up on my musical career.

I've managed to keep my career going in a way that suits me. I'll perform, and then I'll go home to my actual life, and I've never been so visible.

I keep meeting directors that are so irresistible. I only do irresistible films, because I don't need to act to feel myself alive.

I'm voraciously looking to express myself in my work. I love my work.

I hope I'm in a position to make stuff that I really want to make as opposed to stuff that I just have to make for money reasons, or to sustain a certain marquee value.

It wasn't success, because Teller and I, by the time Asparagus Valley got together - within a year, we had achieved all our goals. I mean, our goal was to earn our living doing exactly what we wanted. Which is many people's goal.

With acting, you can find a way to make it interesting for yourself, if nobody else - even on big-budget films. But you're very much on your own.

I think I've been lucky enough not to have to do movie after movie after movie for financial reasons, so I've been able to live life and also make movies. I didn't have to grind them out. I could go long periods where I was living life rather than tripping over cables.

I felt my music wasn't aiming at anybody. Everything I was doing was because it was a good song.

I'm not afraid of a big studio film; I trust my instincts. But for me, it's not really about box office. It's about looking back on your work and not having to apologize for it.

I don't make art to make money, I make art so I can make art.

When you're working in service to a big project, there's always the question of, 'Is there total freedom to do what I think is right artistically, or is this a job?' It's okay for things to be a job. I'm perfectly comfortable working. I don't need to sit around and quench whatever personal artistic thirst I have at all times.

The offers are plenty. I'm just taking time and only working on those projects that excite me.

Even if I do one or two films a year, what is important is whether I'm getting to do the kind of work that I'm interested in.

I continue to write. It's just one of those things that I do. I'll have periods when I write and periods when I don't. But you don't want it to become a discipline really. If it becomes a discipline, it becomes a chore and that's no good.

I'm working for myself; what else have I got to work for? How can you work for an audience? What do you imagine an audience would want? I have got nobody to excite except myself, so I am always surprised if anyone likes my work sometimes. I suppose I'm very lucky, of course, to be able to earn my living by something that really absorbs me to try to do, if that is what you call luck.

My working life is me doing what I want to do. This is that. I've made movies that people don't go to see.

You know when I think about what I'm doing - what I'm doing and the way I'm doing it is more important to me than any amount of money or anything like that because it's my artistic work.

I decided that I would do my best in the future not to write books just for money. If you didn't get the money then you didn't have anything. If I did the work I was proud of and I didn't get the money, at least I'd have the work.

Really I've just gotta be making really great music that I love and not worrying too much about what other people are gonna think about it.

What I've learned and all of us have learned is: You can't force art, and there's no way you could force somebody to do something that they didn't want to do in this line of work.

The story, not the money, excites me.

I'm just doing all type of music that I like. I'm not so worried about the money like I used to be. I got money now. I don't have to worry about that.