Dana Spiotta Quotes

Artists usually don't make all that much money, and they often keep their artistic hobby despite the money rather than due to it.

With my friends in Brooklyn, many of them started out as artists. I saw many of these friends move into late middle age, still struggling without health insurance or a cushion. I saw people who had given up being artists. Being an artist necessitates a compromise or living on the edge.

Every successful artist comes from a family - parents or siblings or both - who, although equally gifted, chose not to pursue the treacherous and difficult path of the artist.

I want to be able to write, that's my first love and I don't want to deviate from it even though I probably could have made a lot more money.

When I began working in not-for-profits, it was taking a vow of poverty, which eliminated huge numbers of folks.

I washed dishes so I could make movies. it was never a way for me to make money.

I really just wanted to be a writer, but people tell you, 'You should have a backup career,' so I thought, 'OK, I'll act.' That was the foolishness of my vision for my life - that my backup career would be completely undependable.

I feel like I've cheated. I never knew what to do. I was never a good enough painter to earn a living, and so I drifted into the theatre, and I've had a successful life. I feel guilty that I've never done a day's work in my life!

Doing films in Latin America is like an act of faith. I mean, you really have to believe in what you're doing because if not, you feel like it's a waste of time because you might as well be doing something that at least pays you the rent.

My parents did not discourage me but could not understand how I could make a living by art. Their idea of an artist was a person who was condemned to starvation.

If you want to devote yourself to the arts, you'd better do it strictly from passion, because there is zero guarantee that you'll get anywhere. The hardest thing is dealing with business people who have nothing to do with your art. They could care less that you're up at 4:30 in the morning writing a joke. Don't expect any sympathy from anybody.

Everyone I know thinks television is the most important part of my life. I did it for the money! I was able to send my daughter to college.

I hate to sound like a romantic adolescent, but I believe artists don't generally see art as a career choice; they simply can't overcome their desire to make art, and will live on little income for as long as they have to, before they start to sell their work - or give up and get a paying job.

I had to turn down a part in 'Empire of the Sun.' It would have paid £15,000, which was a year's earnings for me then, but I was offered a season at the 'National Theatre.'

I didn't become an actor for the money, so I can't stay with a job for that reason. I did too many years of theater where you just get by from month to month, happily, to make that a priority.

I did not become an actor to earn money - that I could have done it in my village by becoming a farmer. I wanted to show my craft, which I am so passionate about.

In 2004, I took a one year sabbatical to finish my second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. At the end of that year, I was not done with my book, and had to in effect resign from work. I did. I never went back.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

I have all but killed myself for Photography. My passion for it is greater than ever. It's forty years that I have fought its fight... I am not fighting to make a 'name' for myself. Maybe you have some feeling for what the fight is for. It's a world's fight... All that's born of spirit seems mad in these days of materialism run riot.

The notion of art as the dearly purchased outcome of an immense spiritual risk, one whose cost goes up with the entry and participation of each new player in the game.

The only sensible way to regard the art life is that it is a privilege you are willing to pay for... You may cite honors and attentions and even money paid, but I would have you note that these were paid a long time after the creator had gone through his struggles.

I put all of my time into art because I couldn't go back to Jersey and work at Starbucks.

I wasn't afraid of being poor; I rather took it for granted. I was good at getting by with very little. I couldn't imagine sacrificing my writing to anything else.

I knew that I was going to dedicate my life to music and that was it.

In Brazil, when you say you're going to be an artist you always get that point of view that this is a crazy career and you might not make it. In my case, it kind of happened.