Helmut Newton Quotes

As a novelist, you have to be free. Books can't be an act of filial duty.

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 feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography.

I had a certain career as an actor that I think was quite personal as well, and had a lot of integrity, but I wasn't writing my own things or directing my own movies.

What is the art world? I never really understood. I started doing this stuff to do what I want to do. Not to be this or that.

As an artist, I want to interpret my feelings - not run across the street and ask what my mother thinks.

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

I will not let my sales figures dictate what I say on the blog, because the blog is what I want to say.

I don't have to compete in the charts. I can just be myself as a musician, a songwriter and play with the musicians that I really love.

I don't necessarily love all the collaborations that I've done; the more I work with other people, the more I realize that I want to work with myself.

I never wanted to be a feature - that was never the goal with my music. I didn't want to just live through other people's work.

Stand up for yourself and fight for your right to be the artist that you want to be. There's plenty of pressure from outside; people tell you how to dress and how to sing or what to sing, but I always felt like if I'm going to fail or succeed, I want to do it on my own terms.

I don't do any art to please any people.

I want to be my own artist and reflect my creativity.. I don't want to be turned into a pop princess; that's not who I am.

I feel like Prince's artistry inspired me as far as staying true to myself and my artistry and what is important to me in my life and applying, you know, all the things that I ever been through into my music, the same way he kinda did in 'Purple Rain.'

You should do the sound that you want and not what others want.

To be honest, I'm selfish as an artist. I'm doing what I want to do and what I want to hear.

We got full artistic integrity and autonomy over what we were doing, and that was the main important thing that kept our band alive.

Oftentimes, it feels like we spend so much of our life waiting to make art, waiting for somebody to let us do something. You don't really have to do that. You can make it all the time. And 99 percent of the time, it's not going to be a big deal on a global scale. But 100 percent of the time, it's going to make you feel amazing.

Basically I just had to say, 'Screw everyone around me - from now on I'm just gonna play what I think is important to me and our music.' So I gave the big finger to all the current trends in technical wizardry, and just went off and did what I felt was best for the songs.

I was 21. At the time, I was under the thumb of my label, and I felt like I had to do, say and act out everything they asked me to do. I was trying to please them and the public and finally I had to say, "Enough. I'm going to make a record that makes me happy and addresses all facets of being a woman. I don't care if I sell one or one million records." That's how I came to make Stripped.

Photographers should follow their own judgment, and not the fads and dictates of others.

The only way artists can do things is to do it for themselves. Trying to second guess what the public wants or likes is kind of a fool's game.

Good or bad, the one thing I can say about my art is, if I can quote Sinatra, I did it my way.

I'm my own artist, and I see artists as movies. No one should try to change them for anything. If you don't like it, you just don't follow it. And if you don't like a movie you don't watch it. Watch another movie.