Kevin Abstract Quotes

My goal is to drop 10 projects in 2013. All albums. I gotta do it. I know the 10 projects I want to drop.

You always want your films to go as far as they can.

Critics think we try to make bad films. They think we want to spend five months of our lives making something bad. We always go out with the best of intentions, whether it's fluffy comedy or a drama.

If you stick with a vision, it might not all work, but some of it will be absolute genius. To me, 15 minutes worth of absolute genius in a film is so much better than two hours of mediocrity. I would rather pay to see something different like that.

Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.

I just want to make one really good movie a year. And when I die, to know I was honest as an artist.

I'm going to continue doing what I want to do. And if it means I want to go and make a big movie, if it has something to say, I will want to make it. I don't want to spend my life wasting my time. If it's a big movie, I want to do it. If it's a small movie, I want to do it.

I'm not only my films, but I'm pretty much my films.

It's dangerous to think too much about how a film will be received. Filmmaking is not a popularity contest. Some would disagree.

I would rather put out two year-defining songs a year than flood the market with eight or nine songs.

I've had about 140 albums released, and I've done everything I wanted to do.

Selling another 10 million albums is not a priority. Putting out something you're proud of is.

I tried to bang down a lot of doors but Virgin were the only label who believed in what I was doing. I ended up with the label that understood what I was trying to do.

Film, as far as I'm concerned, is my area of artistic endeavor, so I never think of a movie that gets released as being all done-it's just when they took it away from you.

I still get a lot of material but I find that as one gets older you get more fussy. You know you're going spend a year or a year and a half on this and you know there are only so many films in you so you get a little bit more selective.

I'd like to make as much art as I possibly can before I die, so I'm working on a few things.

I hate the whole 'record your album, do your promo campaign, have a year off to write another album' pattern. As an artist, you should keep creating as much as you possibly can.

I feel like everything I do in the hip-hop world has an influence. People don't really notice what I did until somebody else does it. As far as hip-hop goes, I want to continue to make good music, and good art. I don't really follow the state of hip-hop.

Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club? Could the New Testament have been composed as a conference report? Creative ideas do not spring from groups.

My favorite artists are the ones that I can take their eight or ten albums, and I can see the arc of their life.

I knew the second I finished the first record - 'House Of Balloons' - and had all this material leftover that a trilogy would be best.

Obsession remains the price of creation, and the writer who declines that risk will come up with nothing more creative than 'The Foxes of Harrow' or 'Mrs. Parkington.'

The ultimate aim of all creative activity is the building!

People think, 'Oh, you're doing 'The Wiz' because 'Empire' is such a big hit.' The truth is, staging this musical has been a dream of ours since the '90s, but the rights were tied up. It's just coincidental that, this year, when we were choosing a new musical, the rights were cleared.

Most of these producers have an agenda of what they want to push or what they think will be hot for someone. I don't have an agenda. My agenda is to take someone and bring out their dreams, what they're hearing in their head.'