Ingmar Bergman Quotes

Other writers, producers, and directors of low-budget films would often put down the film they were making, saying it was just something to make money with. I never felt that. If I took the assignment, I'd give it my best shot.

I don't believe that I should just do A-movies, I just do the work as an artist.

I cannot do a film I don't believe in, however safe it might be.

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

I'll bet Shakespeare compromised himself a lot; anybody who's in the entertainment industry does to some extent.

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise.

I like Modest Mouse. I'm our biggest fan. And enemy. I won't waste people's time by putting out a Modest Mouse record just because. That's fair, right?

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak.

Many musicians will say they don't care about the money yet they must commit themselves to appear at given times and places, and to produce what sells, whether they believe in it or not. It depends on contracts.

I decided to do whatever I could to make sure the business side of music didn't intrude on the creative part.

I've made movies where I was not happy, and I'd rather not work for a year than do a bad film. It takes a long time for me to recuperate when I do that.

I don't want to do material that I don't like. I've always stuck to that policy. If that means being out of work for awhile, that's fine with me.

It doesn't matter even if I am slow or fast as long as my films are honest and carries my integrity.

The market kills more artistic passion than anything else.

There is a desperate tendency to try to legislate artists, to try to lay down rules for their obligations to society. Just leave artists alone. If you are a true artist, you will have a very finely tuned moral mechanism.

The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.

I will die for the art & what I believe in. The art ain't always gon' be polite.

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise. As an actor, you're giving it up, you're at the mercy of so many other people.

I'm not just going to accept something because it's a lot of money. I'm an artist; content is incredibly important to me.

I'm not a movie person. They're collaborations of the worst kind. You must compromise yourself to many interests that are venal and crass and do not have your best interests at heart.

I think, for some artists, the fear of taking on a political identity stems from not wanting to be pigeonholed as political actor or a political musician. It becomes this thing where somehow your art can no longer exist on its own and be multifaceted.

Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories.

I think being an activist and an artist is an interesting contradiction, because so often they are at odds with one another. When you write as an artist you have to clean the palate of your own politics in creating characters and activism is kind of the exact opposite.