Martin Mull Quotes

It's really easy to project this whole ideology of what being an artiste is, and I'm just not down with intellectualizing it. I just think, if you feel like doing something, then do it.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

Cleanliness is the scourge of art.

All good art is an indiscretion.

I must admit, I don't try to put my stamp on anything; it just happens. I don't really know how to think another way.

It is art to conceal art. -Ars est celare artem

Art lies in concealing art.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

I just want to make good music. That's it. That's what I care about.

When people ask about inspirations, and you're like 'oh, it was a flower or a mountain or a pony', some people just think you're insane. I'm worried to come across that way.

I don't write material. Funny things happen to me in the course of a day, and I just make notes.

As I grew older, I realized that it was much better to insist on the genuine forms of nature, for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.

Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.

There's no huge, deep message in any of the songs. We recorded a few months of being human.

I think that's one of the biggest problems in rock is people thinking too much, putting too much emphasis on getting things perfect or completely sorted out. Sometimes that sound of not having everything sorted out is kind of cool.

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.

Art is significant deformity.

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

The pictures are there, and you just take them.

Other musicians are basically personalities who want to make a name for themselves. All I do is sing old songs in the best way I can. What else is there to know? If you were a blacksmith, what would people need to know about you other than whether you can make a good horseshoe?

Art is all in the details.

I don't want life to imitate art. I want life to be art.

If you're not trying to be real, you don't have to get it right. That's art.

I am passionate about keeping the human dimension in things. You have to keep the rough edges and the inconsistencies, that's what makes it interesting. I've always striven to be as sloppy as possible.