J. K. Simmons Quotes

At art college, I started to do music and then painting and drawing - and that would have been my ideal life, to be an artist and be paid for it, to be able to create stuff. I realized it was difficult, but I don't know if I had the application for it.

I know how difficult it is to make a career in the arts, but even if you don't make a career of it, don't lose it as a hobby. Artists often end up in jobs that have nothing to do with their art. But that side needs to be fulfilled - don't give it up.

I regret not starting to paint earlier...It is one of the few things I do regret.

With no other privilege than that of sympathy and sincere good wishes, I would address an affectionate exhortation to the youthful literati, grounded on my own experience. It will be but short; for the beginning, middle, and end converge to one charge: NEVER PURSUE LITERATURE AS A TRADE.

I feel lucky that I've been able to make a living from painting any idea that comes into my head.

I think there's a deep impulse in most humans to do creative stuff, whether that's music or art, photography or writing. Most people at some point in their life say they want to do something creative - they want to be an actor, a director, a writer, a poet, a painter or whatever.

I get to sing and act and write and create and produce for a living and share art with people, and I feel like a piece of that is in honor of those who came before me.

I'm not looking to be an artist to make money. I'm looking to be an artist.

I want to die painting.

Somebody said us artists have trouble with success because art is derived from struggle. I disagree with that, because truely doing your art is success, whether you make money from it or not.

If I wasn't an actress I'd definitely want to do something in the arts and something that was very creative.

Gradually I find that my whole soul is merging itself into this business of writing, and especially of writing poetry. I am going to try it; and am going to test, in the most rigid way I know, the awful question whether it is my vocation.

I never thought about doing anything other than making art.

I can't express how wonderful it is to get feedback when you've been sort of in a bubble working on something and then you release it to the world and hope for the best. It's like the birth of a musical baby.

I want to work in art forever.

I could never even entertain the notion that it's an option, to not be an artist.

I do believe I was put here to tell stories and be creative in that way. It's given my life so much purpose and meaning, and it's ultimately what I live for.

If I can be doing something in the arts till the day I die. I would be very, very happy.

I've had a lot of successes as a songwriter, and I really have nothing to prove in that arena, so I'm just excited about the next challenge of pursuing this artist thing.

There were a million different things I could have chosen or wanted to do, but the path of an artist was the one that pulled me the most.

I remember, when I was young, to have a literary or artistic vocation was really dramatic because you were so isolated from the common world. You felt that you were marginal, and if you dared to try to organise your life around your vocation, you knew you'd be completely segregated.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

I don't have keepsakes from shows, really. It's in the work. It's all there.

I have had such a satisfying career; I've gotten to do so many amazing things as an artist.

I am just an artiste, and I like to explore new avenues.