Bruce Nauman Quotes

There's the dual challenge of wanting to speak from an authentic place, and then being able to be honest about it. Even in the most mannered art, I think that's what people value, is a voice that comes from a real place.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.

Bernard Shaw said that when you copy yourself, you know you've got style. And I feel that if you can write like you write, then you are true to yourself. And it's not an easy thing to do - it's a disgustingly difficult thing to do.

I just always stay honest with myself. All my stuff isn't boastful, but some of it is. But that's just the music, the art.

I would rather die than be a serious artist, or a fake artist.

You've got to be honest with yourself aesthetically about who could you play. You want to artistically be true to that character.

You can't trust an artist that just makes good records.

What motivates me in art is the ugly and beautiful nature of the truth. It has to be truthful and honest, even if it is ugly and grotesque.

Mainly, I don't like it when music is made solely to impress people or in order to please business people; it doesn't sound good to me. If you're making music in order to become famous or loved by the masses... that's not what I'm about. When somebody's making music for the wrong reasons, I hear it right away.

As an artist, as an actor, as a writer, you have to use what's personal to you. You have to be personal about your work; otherwise, it doesn't ring true.

I shall try to write a poem that is about the moment but doesn't betray things that are true to me as a poet.

I've been & am absurdly over-estimated. There are no supermen & I'm quite ordinary, & will say so whatever the artistic results. In that point I'm one of the few people who tell the truth about myself.

I don't really see how any song can not feel contrived if it isn't honest, and how could I write honest songs if I don't write about stuff going on in my life and how I'm feeling?

If you try to go beyond your interests just for the sake of pretensions or wealth, your art becomes less legitimate.

The only people who have doubts about the sincerity of my music are people who come to it relatively late, off the back of having seen me in a film. Acting is about being other people, and music is about being myself.

Fantasy isn't something I put into the pictures; I don't try and inject them with a sense of play. But it's about being an honest photographer; a photograph is as much of a mirror of the photographer as it is the subject.

The best writing really does come from the deepest, most private part of you.

You can't intellectually purge yourself of who you are. Whatever that is, it's going to come out in the wash, the film wash. What you are is going to be relevant, if not to yourself, to the movies you make.

You can tell an honest artist from one who's just given all their songs.

I never judge my own songwriting. It's just my heart. What's there to judge about your own heart?

There is a little bit of me in every part I do... I'm not really good enough to completely construct an all-new character.

I feel like my mission is to be honest with myself. My mission is to share my truth - share, not give. I think that's what an artist is supposed to do: I think they share.

Being a painter is the only profession where you have to stand there with all your shortcomings on the wall.

I feel like there's an obligation - this sounds terribly pretentious - if you're an artist, to share your own experience in a way that's truthful and honest: 'This is what I have to share; this is my life.'