Sylvester Stallone Quotes

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.

When you're making pictures out of heartfelt passion, it hurts when someone calls them a calculated business move.

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity. The believing man is the original man; whatsoever he believes, he believes it for himself, not for another.

The secret of success is doing things not merely because they are popular, but because you deeply believe in them.

You've got to care about the music...You'd better not be doing it for the publicity, the fame or the money. And you'd sure better not be doing it because it's a way to make a living, 'cause that ain't always going to be easy. You got to believe it, believe in the music. You got to mean it.

I don't want to do stories that don't have a heart. I'm just not going to be satisfied with stories where I can't be passionate about the subject, where I can't make a difference.

Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

You have to make films you feel strongly about. And then hope you can find the audience.

I know this sounds phony, but I don't start out on a project going, 'I'm going to make an emotional work,' you know what I mean? You try to tell the story directly and honestly and with passion.

When you write a song, you don't ask if it's good or not, or if it's gonna sell. When you write a song, you ask whether you've reached deep inside your heart and whether it's honest.

If it doesn't come from your heart, music just doesn't work.

The most important thing I can say is to make music that moves you. Don't try and chase what's on the radio or what you think people want to hear.

I want to tell stories that I feel for, and I don't want to be a sell-out.

I do think there's a difference when you see a book where you can tell the creator's doing something they really love or are really passionate about as opposed to an artist or a writer who is just doing a particular job or trying to sell a product or trying to cash in on a popular trend.

You can play as good as you want, but you have to sing from a place of living.

If you make a movie that's close to your heart, it will be close to other people's.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men that is genius.

You can't just sing the song and live another life, you know. It's really difficult now because that's not what it's about. It's pop and pop just says that we could be actors. We could sing about stuff and not believe in it. It could be absolutely fraudulent and it doesn't really matter.

I would only make a movie that I believe in. If I didn't believe in it, it would be unworthy.

Stand up for what you believe. Follow your gut, which most of the time is your heart talking. This has been my hardest lesson. I have given this advice and not always followed it myself. The truth is, there is no other way.

Don't ever speak publicly about anything that you're not passionate about and that you don't actually believe you have something truly unique about it to deliver.

Anything that I do is something that I'm passionate about and really believe in, no matter how it turns out.

I'm never going to sing another song I don't believe in. I'm never going to make another picture I don't believe in.

When it came down to it, he just wasn't that engaged. You had to be engaged to be a vegetarian; you had to be engaged to sing "Both Sides Now" with your eyes closed; when it came down to it, you had to be engaged to be a mother.