Simone Weil Quotes

I think that's part of the battle of defining yourself as an artist. You're constantly fighting the pressure from outside to be pigeonholed and deliver more of what people already liked.

I tend to get very suspicious of anything that thinks it's art while it's being created.

I'm not an industry artist - I'm an artist in the industry.

All you can do as an artist is do what you think is an extension of you. You put down on paper ... who you are. That's what being an artist is all about. And when it gets done, you don't look back at it and say, Oh, I could have done that better.

They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist.

The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.

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

There were times in my career when I would try to write songs like Bob Dylan... Artists get hooked up in that. To be a follower, you lose.

I coined this term 'freedom thru limitation' back in the '90s because I was sick of art being treated like pop, because of this boring 'anything can be art' theory.

People understand what art is supposed to look like, and so it's easy to make something that looks like art but isn't - especially in an abstract form.

Putting out commercial pieces and promoting them and trying to sell them to people is not necessarily what it means to be an artist.

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

Most female artists - to do what you have to do and to be as honest as you have to be, to be as selfish as you have to be, as tunnel-visioned as you have to be to make art, not entertainment - you can't compromise, really.

Before the money or anything, number one, it was just to put out real music, real stuff with a passion, real art.

I grew up at the time of Social Realism in Poland, when everyone was supposed to be 'writing for the workers.' But I soon became allergic to this. I have never written for audiences. I like it if they appreciate my music. But I would never change my style for them.

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

The idea of going off to an office every day and 'putting on my art hat' doesn't appeal.

I would love for my existence as an artist to be completely about my art - not about my social media, or what I do vs what's cool right now, or even whether or not I sound okay in an interview.

I think the worst thing in the world is for artists to produce themselves.

I always talk about if you want to be an artist, you have to be authentic because people can tell bullshit a mile away. There is nothing wrong with creating a character, standing behind that character, and that being an authentic performance piece, because that's a piece of art as well. But if you want to be an artist in any form, you have to know to come with it.

Art doesn't go to sleep in the bed made for it. It would sooner run away than say its own name: what it likes is to be incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what its own name is.

You can’t control what other people think about your art. Think about the part of yourself that you can control, which is your ability to be kind and loving and creative.

I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artists’ relationship is essentially with their work — not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience.

I think it's harder to make a classic now, not because of what people say, but because artists now are so concerned with what people say.

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