Edward Steichen Quotes

I think nearly every artist continually wants to reach the edge of nothingness - the point where you can’t go any further.

One day when I was studying with Schoenberg, he pointed out the eraser on his pencil and said, 'This end is more important than the other.' After twenty years I learned to write directly in ink.

I come from an art-school background, and I still feel that in my music, it's about exploration and challenging myself, about putting myself in a place that's frightening because I haven't been there before.

Never try to make the same record twice, even when people are screaming for the same sound.

Herman Melville said that artists have to take a dive and either you hit your head on a rock and you split your skull and you die … or that blow to the head is so inspiring that you come back and do the best work that you ever did. BUT you have to take the dive and you do not know what the results will be.

Creative risks will always outweigh technical mistakes.

Don't worry about mistakes. Making things out of mistakes, that's creativity.

I believe that a creative career is only as good as the risks that you take with it.

When I've worked with established artists, I've naturally been more restricted, but you still have to take risks and push yourself to do something different.

The big cop-out would be to accept popularity rather than opting to try to create potent work. It's so easy to do the popular thing, the expected thing, and that's where you start to cheat yourself - and your fans, in the end - because there's an inherent dishonesty in pandering and dishing up what everyone's expecting.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing; I don't know if it's any good. I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line.

When anyone starts out to do something creative - especially if it seems a little unusual - they seek approval, often from those least inclined to give it. But a creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism - you learn this as you go on.

Art doesn't just happen by accident. It is about pulling out new tricks and trying new things.

One of my life philosophies is that you have a choice to make when you're doing something creative. You can be cheesy... or you can be lame.

I think if you don't risk something in art, it's not really important.

I think, as an artist, you want to keep going - you want to keep taking challenges; you want to be pushed, in a way - and I think Sonic Evolution does that, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable and get out of my comfort zone.

Sometimes you write songs that don't all fit together. What do you, just throw them away? This might be a chance for growth and learning. It could be a horrible fall-on-your-face kind of experiment.

You can always hear a director saying, 'Well I don't really know what this piece is saying, so therefore, I reject it.' There are any number of things you can anticipate going wrong, and sometimes they go right. But I think the things you like most are the things that get rejected first. That's just how things work.

All of the good things that surround art - you have to embrace the idea that it could be a complete disaster. I think that's what gives it its artistic sparkle is that it really could crash and burn at any moment because you're going out on a limb and being very personal.

I think if you're a creative person, then you're always kinda looking to move things along - 'Where else can I go? Where can I take this?' From painters to photographers - anything creative in the arts - if you're a true artist, I think you'll always look to do something else. 'Where else can I go with it?' Do you know what I mean?

I don't think it's a mistake to put every great idea into the first movie, because I've always said there won't be a second movie if you go 'we'll hold back these ideas for another one.

Real artists, it seems to me, are those who don't repeat themselves.

The artist is called a creator.