Maurice Sendak Quotes

I never wanted to be someone who's asking someone to put my work in their gallery. I wanted to be asked.

When art is about craftsmanship, then guys like me don't make it as artists.

My question about my art and my music has always been, 'Am I good, or am I good because?' I'm not the artist who wants to have the 'because' attached.

I studied political science and international relations, so I never considered myself an artist.

Most painters want recognition, especially by their peers.

I've always been a fine artist.

Actually, yeah, I am an artist. I draw.

I don't like artists who are actors. I like artists, but I don't believe in that.

Do I belong in the conversation about the best artists in the world? My answer is yes, I do.

Definitely, it's hard being a young artist and being taken seriously.

I consider myself more of a writer than I do a director.

When you're an artist, you're working, literally, for the sole purpose of art, and when people discredit you, it's probably the most disrespectful thing you can do.

I think artists are interested in what people think of them.

I know there are people who are praying for my downfall, but they're going to be like, 'Wow, Xan's actually an artist.'

Just because I'm a recording artist doesn't mean I'm not an artist. Because I had to grow.

I've been slagged off completely by the art world and I don't know whether fancy being slagged off by the literary world as well. It's just too much.

Early in school, they called me 'the artist.' When teachers wanted things painted, they called upon me, they called upon 'the artist.' I am not saying that I learned my name, animals can learn their names, I am saying that they learned it.

Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it.

If you're an artist, you've got to prove it.

How can people think that artists seek a name? A name, like a face, is something you have when you're not alone. There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world, lit or unlit as the light allows.

I wouldn't buy somebody's album on a dare if they called him a musician's musician. I don't write to be a writer's writer. I don't want to be like the little-magazine writer.

While the space for artists and curators has increased enormously, maybe, just maybe, that's left room for too many people calling themselves artists and curators who are simply not up to the term.

To be an artist and to be recognized by another artist who is, you know, just something you can't even put into words, someone that is so far beyond what the normal human being experience is in terms of creativity and originality. That was kind of a moment where I thought wow maybe I do have something more that makes me special.

If you're a painter and you want people to know who you are and recognize your work, you've got to build some long-term value.

Nowhere in my collection do I, say, have a Auguste Renoir painting. Because everybody knows that this is a good painter without me having to demonstrate it.