William Faulkner Quotes

Critics used to say that ABBA were formulaic or that our songs were rubbish. We never had time for those comments, though. We were sincere and devoted to what we did.

Any artist that's involved in their work is inevitably going to have a focus in what they do.

I think the trouble with artists or chefs who whine about criticism is that if you love the good reviews, you have to at least read the bad ones.

Those trying to drag me down through piracy, I want to tell them that I will somehow achieve what I want. I am focused enough to achieve what I want and give the audience what I can.

The true professional makes art when he is not feeling good, if the studio is too cold or too warm or the walls are falling down. We are painters and we paint. If I were a sculptor, I'd sculpt.

For some people, fame kills it and becomes more important than the music or the performance. But for me fame is like rocket fuel. The more my fans like what I'm doing, the more I want to give back to them. And my passion is so strong I can't sleep - I haven'tslept for three days.

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.

O painter, take care lest the greed for gain prove a stronger incentive than renown in art, for to gain this renown is a far greater thing than is the renown of riches.

Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich. Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her, she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling.

I just go in the studio and do what I love to do. People will be people, they'll come and go, they'll like you then not like you, I just try to stay true to myself first and that's what most important because that way when you are successful you can stand up and say look, I did it my way and I did it the way that I wanted to do it.

I want to be a jazzman until the day I die. To help keep that motion, momentum and movement going, for myself, for my students, for the people who hear me. Oh sure, some days you look around at this country and look at the evidence and think, Oh Lord, don't look good. But you keep moving. You gotta keep moving.

Write for the love of your art. Someplace down the road, the money, the fame, they'll come, but by that time you won't be thinking in terms of money or fame.

Either I'll never get rich from the show but remain intensely proud of the work and stand behind every second of it, or it catches on and I'll make my money down the road.

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.

I would tell anyone, pick the person you love the most, the musician, the actor, public figure, whatever, and watch a bunch of their interviews and find ones where they talk about all the times they've failed, all the times they weren't good enough, and watch those on the regular. It's a very unique type of inspiration. It's almost like spiritual jumper cables for your inner drive.

A creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.

To be a good poet, you must care more about the writing, than the writer.

I always say perseverance is nine-tenths of any art — not that it's much help to be nine-tenths an artist, of course.

Waiting to be happy limits our brain's potential for success, whereas cultivating positive brains makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative, and productive, which drives performance upward.

Music is an art and art has its own rules. And one of them is that you must pay more attention to it than anything else in the world, if you are going to be true to yourself. And if you don't do it - and you are an artist - it punishes you.

You get rich because you do things most people will not do. Success requires sacrifice. You must be willing to make those sacrifices.

I believe that producing pictures, as I do, is almost solely a question of wanting so very much to do it well.

I work as diligently on my canvases as the laborers do in their fields.

I made 5,127 prototypes of my vaccum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure.

Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.