H. P. Lovecraft Quotes

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

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

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

The artist should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him. If, however, he sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting that which he sees before him. Otherwise, his pictures will be like those folding screens behind which one expects to find only the sick or the dead.

If you want to be an artist, truly try to write what you believe, and if you write when you don't believe then you should try to become an actor.

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

I've always felt that if one was going to take seriously this vocation as an artist, you have to get beyond that decorative facade.

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.

It's the duty of all novelists, all painters, all musicians, all people who try to make art move: to look for something they feel authentically, without paying attention to styles.

As frustrating as it is to not have a record come out, I have to make sure that it's worth putting out. I have to be trying to say something, for one. I have to not oversell what I'm trying to say. I can't 'Bono' it.

I don't want to sound like an aesthete, but one has to be true to the art. And that means being true to the tradition of the art but also being true to your own artistic vision.

In any piece of art, the artist pours themselves into it. It becomes a reflection of who they are and what they believe. That's what it has to be. Otherwise it's just a product.

There are all kinds of pretensions about art, but I'm just a guy who sings for his supper.

We don't change with the times because we write from the heart. We don't need to change our image to sell records because that's not why we do this.

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.

I think as a mature artist, you're probably always trying to undo the compromises of one's self [in general]. It's not necessarily to do with youth.

Be sensitive to the qualities inherent in the medium. Paint honestly and avoid tricks.

It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious - to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality - he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market. All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.

An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth.

The only artist who does not deserve respect is the one who works to please the public, for commercial success or for official success.

The writer concerned more with technique than truth becomes a technician, not an artist.

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.

If you're in music just to become a big, fat rock star, then I probably don't like your music to begin with.

A scientist can pretend that his work isn't himself, it's merely the impersonal truth. An artist can't hide behind the truth. He can't hide anywhere.

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.