Roy Ayers Quotes

Someone who is an artist can say, 'I can create and can make what I create disappear.'

I don't think there's any formula for what makes great art.

Art is the fatal net which catches these strange moments on the wing like mysterious butterflies, fleeing the innocence and distraction of common men.

I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.

People can see you on TV sloshing paint around with big four-inch brushes, and I learned to talk to camera in a friendly voice, not talking down to people, just explaining what I was doing. People like Picasso, Van Gogh, and Rembrandt did not have a weekly TV programme where people could see them painting.

Leave to the masters of art trained by a lifetime of devotion the wonderful process of picture-building and picture creation. Go out into the sunlight and be happy with what you see.

The artist is called a creator.

I always wanted to show the world that art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind.

The particulars of life do not matter to the artist; they merely provide him with the opportunity to lay bare his genius.

The whole Modernist lie is that art is about the artist.

There is nothing new in art except talent.

A great artist is a great man in a great child.

To be an artist, you need to play inside your work.

When Picasso painted in Paris, was he a Spanish or a French painter? It does not matter, he was Picasso, whatever the influences surrounding him. He simply chose Paris because it was the ideal place for him to sell his creation.

There are forms of art that I might not like to do myself, but I still have respect for the artists who create it.

I believe in art.

Picasso is still influencing me. Of course, I haven't got that kind of energy, or skill.

In any art, you don't know in advance what you want to say - it's revealed to you as you say it. That's the difference between art and illustration.

To give a body and a perfect form to one's thought, this - and only this - is to be an artist.

That's the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice, you can make great paintings.

I paint. I love the visual arts.

I have to take it as a given that I have got a certain ability to do something. I can be an artist, which is take something and transform it into another thing. I can just see something, and I can see my painting.

If the audience knew what they wanted then they wouldn't be the audience, they would be the artist.

I'd like to write the way Matisse paints.

I think of art as the highest level of creativity. I was exposed to it since I was very small.