Peter Tosh Quotes

I don't want to use my creative energy on somebody else's user interface.

I couldn't be an artist who was told what to do, what to be, what to sing.

When I was working for WWE I felt like I was trying to make someone else's vision happen instead of my own. And I think that's where I became less true to myself and I think it showed in my work.

When I got into the music industry, I wasn't focused on being the most famous artist or even getting a major record deal. It was just to make music on my own terms or create my own image, do my own hair, do my own makeup.

My job is to just express something that I want to express. And if I'm ahead or behind the curve, that's for others to decide.

I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.

I'm making the art for me first. I'm making it because these are the pictures I want to see. I'm making pictures that don't yet exist.

I love music because you can create a world through your records. I have total control over what I do and what I wear. It's like my own world out of my imagination rather than someone giving me lines.

At this stage of my life, I've dedicated myself to playing what I want to play, how I want to play it for the rest of my time. Regardless of whether one might like it or one might not like it, this is where I am.

I've never been one to sit back and go, 'I'd better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don't want to lose them.'

I don't work to any commissions. I do what I want to do.

They say I'm insane because I need to have so much creative control. They say I'm unmanageable, but I'm not. I just know what I like. I'm obsessed with it. If you can't control it, that's like having somebody else paint your pictures. How could you do that? I never could.

I formed a resolution to never write a word I did not want to write; to think only of my own tastes and ideals, without a thought of those of editors or publishers.

I don't really believe in the type of pressure that people are wanting to put on the type of music that I make.

I can't control what people think. I'm not trying to manipulate people's thoughts or sentiments. I write all the time. You have to experience life, make observations, and ask questions. It's machine-like how things are run now in hip-hop, and my ambitions are different.

I just don't like to do a lot of the normal things expected of other artists. I'm not trying to be difficult; I'm just trying to stick with what it is I want to do.

I somehow sensed when I was a teenager that I wanted to do my own work. I was quite clear that I didn't want to be an interpretative kind of artist. I had an intuition about wanting to create my own form, in one way or another, whatever that would be.

I think it's so important as an actor that you hang on to your own inner compass, because so many people want to guide you - 'This is what you should you be doing'. But I want to do different things.

I want to be a genuine artist who has a say in what I do.

My art and my creativities were totally something that was of my own heart and mind. I could never let anybody dictate to me what I should write and how I would write it.

I try to just make what I want to make or what I would want to see. I try not to think about the audience too much.

I make pop music, but I do it on my own terms. I'll never play the game, so to speak, just for success. I'll always follow my heart and make the music I want to make.

I'm not going to restrict myself as an artist.

What I don't like is when people feel like they can box an artist into who they think an artist should be.

Some people don't understand that I - as an artist and a person - I want to make my own decisions and create the music that I personally like.