Brian Wilson Quotes

The last thing I think about when I'm making music is its reception.

I don't believe that artists really are interested in money. That's not the motivation for art.

Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.

To cast aside from Poetry, all that is not Inspiration

We wanted to wait until the music felt right. We didn't want to do it, just to do it. We didn't want to do it for money, I guess, is the thing that would have just bummed me out so much.

I’m not producing movies to make money

Making music is mostly spontaneously following sounds you find compelling that you chase and see where they're leading you.

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.

I try not to think the song to death. The main criteria is if it's working on an emotional level.

I don’t need the money. I don’t care if I make a dime on this. Let me make a good record.

I’ve never done a film for the money

I don't think about commercial concerns when I first come up with something. When I sit down at the piano, I try to come up with something that moves me.

I think that anyone really can write songs, it just takes having an idea and a feeling and chasing it, and you can learn more about it. I think that's why I go to so many sessions. It is a craft that you can learn from other people. I find it to be the most fascinating thing. So I write a lot, yeah!

I don't think it matters what the frequency is of me writing or directing a movie. It doesn't really matter to anybody else. I'm just trying to put good things out there.

If I wanted to make money I would have written another novel.

I don't know any musician, successful or otherwise, that got in it to make money. Or writer, for that matter. You get into it because you love it.

I just do what I do. I like to make music.

My primary thing is to make a painting, not necessarily to make a painting to sell for gazillions of dollars, but just to make a painting.

I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.

I won't make a movie for money ever again.

I play patterns. I'll make up a pattern and just play it.

The way that I've always gone about making music, the rule of thumb, has just been to make what I love.

I don't do something because I think it will sell 30 million albums. I couldn't care less. If it sells one, it sells one.

I don't think I'm making any great statements, and I certainly don't think I'm making art.

Usually when a song comes to me, I don't ask a lot of questions; I hear something, and I just let it out in song. It's like making a salad. Everything I hear, and everything I am, I mix together in a different way in each song.