Andrei Tarkovsky Quotes

If there are some who talk the same language as myself, then why should I neglect their interests for the sake of some other group of people who are alien and remote? They have their own 'gods and idols' and we have nothing in common. ... If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money.

I absolutely loathe the idea of doing a fragrance simply as a moneymaker. Personal brand to make money? Vomit.

I think no matter what you do, a certain amount of people are going to call you a sellout, somehow, you know. If I ever start trying to make a living on it.

Since the composer has said everything, if you discover everything, it will be enough and you will be a happy man. Don't try to say it's your taste, and because of that you are changing this or that. And I must say this respect is still there.

It's not good for comedy to be like, 'Thanks for liking me.' Being popular is poison.

I think people ease into this careerist professionalism, so if you're a writer it's your job to manufacture books as opposed to writing them and to go to festivals and spend your life emotionally invested in reviews or the awards. You have to shrink your universe in a way. To me, it's the opposite.

I try to be respectful about getting an honor or recognition, but I don't really know what the Rock Hall actually is. In my experience with the people who run it, I don't see it having to do with anything other than them making money.

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.

It's just a campy blast. I just want to do as little as I can and make it good, and try not to sell out. I'm sure I will, but I'm just trying to postpone it.

I would urge all bands that say they only care about credibility and don't care about money to send Gene Simmons every dollar that they don't want. I'd be happy to take it off them.

The whole 'sell out' word to me is such a tired, tired word.

The day I make movies that Rupert Murdoch likes and admires is the day I'll throw in the towel, because he's got no taste.

It can be a machine. The machine tries to make money and forget about the heart and the art. Hollywood is more about making money.

Record labels and producers are not looking to change you: they are looking to make a star. And what they might think is a star may not be you.

I would never be a sellout, but you can never be a sellout to kids. Kids is kids!

Now, what we do in Hollywood, we don't cast for the role, we cast for the money, and that's where the real man gets lost.

There are some bands for whom that works very well and it's no disrespect to them because I'm sure there's something honest and natural about it, but for us I feel like it would be dishonest and kinda disrespectful to that artwork to do that. To be like: "Okay, we're going to go back and only play these songs, even though we have an hour to an hour and a half set and we gotta play more songs, but we'll skimp you on your extra half hour." That's just silly to me.

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you’ve sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.

I'd advise all you songwriters out there, if you're getting into it for the business, go home and get a job digging ditches or something. Get a life. You'll learn a lot more, and you won't write a lot of rotten poetry.

Art is a bad word in Hollywood. You use art too many times and they show you the elevator and then your name is taken off the parking lot.

Whenever you think you're writing what other people want to hear from you, and that it'll be commercial, you're doomed to disaster. Writing has to be as truthful and specific as we can make it. The minute we think that we're reaching more people and pleasing them, we get general. And audiences sense that and turn away, shun us.

Respect is one of the greatest expressions of love. If other people try to write your story, it means they don't respect you. They consider that you're not a good artist who can write your own story, even though you were born to write your own story.

I don't hold it against Dizzy [Gillespie], you know, but if a guy wants to play a certain way, you work towards that. If he stops - he's full of crap, you know. I mean, I wouldn't do it, for no money, or for no place in the white man's world. Not just to make money, because then you don't have anything. You don't have as much money as whoever you're trying to ape; that's making money by being commercial. Then you don't have anything to give the world; so you're not important. You might as well be dead.

Anytime you adapt work of somebody who you respect, as much as I respect him, it's an enormous responsibility. In honoring that responsibility, what we try to do is to continually use his work, and the writing that he did about his life and his work, as our guide. That starts with his intent for what he was trying to express when he wrote it, and it extends to his intent overall.