Leo Sayer Quotes

Putting out commercial pieces and promoting them and trying to sell them to people is not necessarily what it means to be an artist.

Some musicians feel they have to provide what their audiences expect. They lose the distinction between an artist and an entertainer. I am not an entertainer.

Rozay is an artist himself so he understands the importance of being true to your work.

The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.

I only make records when I feel I have something to say. I'm not interested in releasing music just for the sake of selling something. Sade is not a brand.

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

I would rather die than be a serious artist, or a fake artist.

What you're really after when you see a film or listen to a song is a singular vision, and I'm not sure how much of that you really get in Hollywood.

I can't constantly be trying to write the unwritten song, the song that the 15-year-old girl needs. I need to write the song that I need.

Whatever is about you that is translated into your art, that's gonna keep you completly original and fresh and I just think that, that's just the best advice I can give, to an artist creatively.

I have to live authentically at all times. And that's part of what makes me an artist. I'm not scared to do that.

Imagine if someone like John Lennon or Bob Marley, Sid Vicious, Picasso, whomever, were doing their work, and some corporation, some CEO, some branding entity was saying to you, 'Well, you can do that, but you've got to remove this aspect of your work.' There would no longer be that purity anymore.

The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.

I think the moment you start trying to please a fan base is when you start going downhill. I'm going to always, always write about what I want, even if it doesn't necessarily cater to most of them.

The only way for me to be an artist is to be honest in my craft. If I veer from that, I'm not giving the investors what they want. Sometimes it's my job as an artist to know what I want to do, even when the fans tell me different.

When the business starts shaping the art, or the delivery of the art, then it's not right.

I'm always looking for a reason to say no when I'm approached about a big studio tentpole because your fear is will you be consumed into the anonymous machine, and it will suck out any specificity and point of view that you might hope to express.

If I knew anything about what people wanted and was popular, I'd still be writing for 'Saturday Night Live'. I can only write what I want, and hopefully people will like it.

One of the worst things that can happen to an artist is to perceive himself as the owner of his art, and art as his tool. A product of the marketplace sensibility, this attitude barely differs on a psychological plane from the patron's view of the artist as a paid employee.

As a director, I design every movie to be true to itself, and damn it if they like it, and damn it if they don't.

You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else.

I think that's part of the battle of defining yourself as an artist. You're constantly fighting the pressure from outside to be pigeonholed and deliver more of what people already liked.

I'd love more production houses to encourage artists to create what they want and not just churn things out.

I want to have a long career. But that's based on wanting people to buy into my voice and not into a fabricated image.

I can only do music if I can do it the way I can do it.