Friedrich Schiller Quotes

You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny, and hope that whatever your art is that you're putting out there, if it's received, great, I respect you for receiving it. If it's not received, great, I respect you for not.

I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like.

An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.

You can't be trying to make a film that pleases all people, you know, so it's not a concern of mine.

I don't need anybody to market or promote me. If people don't want to hear this music, then it's not for them. You cannot please everybody.

I care so much about making things that are useful for people to have and listen to, but I don't care so much that I won't do whatever the hell I want. It's just one of those things.

Politics is politics; art is art. If you play a political role, you have to stop being an artist.

The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can't have both.

I like to think that I'm a populist entertainer, but I'm a little bit idiosyncratic, and sometimes the networks wouldn't really roll with that.

I've done some of my best work in films that fell right through the cracks, so I try to not make career moves but to build a body of work.

I've always been against the idea of dividing films between festival titles and popular movies. I think you can make films that are both.

I'm just trying to work out a way to be a singer and to create cool content. I'm willing to do that as an entertainer. But I'm not willing to give up my actual self.

You can't expect to connect with everybody, and that's all right. The more I make films, I'm learning that you don't have to make films for everybody. A film can be made for a smaller group of people than that, and it still warrants an existence.

Commercial theater, in its agenda to appeal to everybody, is often at the expense of the unique vision of the artist.

It's not always about huge giant commercial success. It's about art.

When you're working in service to a big project, there's always the question of, 'Is there total freedom to do what I think is right artistically, or is this a job?' It's okay for things to be a job. I'm perfectly comfortable working. I don't need to sit around and quench whatever personal artistic thirst I have at all times.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

I never know if my picture is a good picture or a bad picture, because I'm not making pictures thinking of the public, I'm making pictures to realize myself.

Art is a statement of one in the face of all; not a statement by one for the use of all.

I think the biggest thing that people fear when it comes to art becoming a business is those authentic, pure aspirations of art being compromised.

My work is trying to at least define myself on my own terms, and then if other people enjoy things that's a lovely addition.

I am not likely to die of bashfulness but neither am I prepared to be crucified to attest the perfection of my art. I dislike to hear of any stray heroics on the prowl for me.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

Follow your heart, and your pleasure in art. Don’t do what you think is going to be making you money, or what you’re parents want you to do, or what that beautiful girl or guy thinks you should be doing. Do what you love. It’s going to lead to where you want to go. Go out there and make the world more beautiful. I know you can.