Douglas Adams Quotes

Never hate a song that's sold a half million copies.

A lot of dumb pictures have made a lot of money, but that doesn't mean they're going to be anything cinema students will revel over in the future.

The concept that an artist would be revered by popular culture is an immediate dismissal of his relevance as an artist.

People think it's suspect and self-indulgent to make art, and I don't think that's true. Some people think you should be busy making something that you can sell in the marketplace, and if nobody wants to buy it, it must be crap. And that's not true.

I have cut four albums so far, and all of them have been trendsetters and commercially successful. I believe that once you start taking art in commercial terms, it ceases to be art.

I don't think you're selling out by allowing the masses to love your art. The only curse is that, when you get so big, sometimes people forget to look at the music.

If you make a good film, then there's no harm if it achieves commercial success.

Some people think big audiences are crass and that, say, a comedy that appeals to a wide audience is pandering. Other people would argue that you could say that about Moliere.

I don't want to be the cranky old guy, but a lot of critics are too forgiving of mediocre artists. When you see these 'American Idol' people on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' being written about as serious artists, there's something wrong with that. You can erase them from the history of rock n' roll, and you wouldn't notice.

Pop artists work really hard, and they might not work for the same things that indie artists do, but they're still musicians, and they're still making art.

I personally don't distinguish between artistic and commercial films.

I think when you get all the money and all the freedom, rarely do you get a good movie out of it or a movie that you're proud of.

I think inevitably over the course of my lifetime there's been an underestimation of the American people, and I believe they are really the ones that give me hope. There's so much of "they don't know this, and they don't know that," and they're always denigrating.

I think it was Roger Fry who first coined what he took to be a final definition of a work of art, whether it was a painting, building, poem or Hepplewhite chair. He said that the best works of art are finished products that preserve 'a valuable state of mind'.

When critics or people judge, I think it's harder to make a commercial, pop movie than it is to make a pretentious art film. It's harder to reach millions of people and satisfy them and make them happy. These films kind of get ghettoized, this genre because there are so many big, big movies that are such big hits, but aren't any good. The audiences, they're not judging the style of the director, or the execution of the film. They're just looking to be entertained. They want to escape from their reality, and that's why we make movies, to get people to escape from the realities.

The public want actresses, because they think all actresses bad. They don't want music or poetry because they know that both are good. So actors and actresses thrive and poets and composers starve.

I don't think [price] reflects if the work is good or bad.A good artist shouldn't be nervous about that.

Publishers, theatrical managers, and critics ask not for the quality inherent in creative art, but will it meet with a good sale, will it suit the palate of the people? Alas, this palate is like a dumping ground; it relishes anything that needs no mental mastication. As a result, the mediocre, the ordinary, the commonplace represents the chief literary output.

The public buys "art" - but the word is drained of its meaning.

I think no matter what you do, a certain amount of people are going to call you a sellout, somehow, you know. If I ever start trying to make a living on it.

I'm a songwriter first...In my career I have never felt that my being a woman was an obstacle or an advantage. I guess I've been oblivious...Sensitive, humbug. Everybody thinks I'm sensitive...There is a downside to having one of the biggest-selling albums ever.

To me, more importantly, I want to make films that I believe in, that I find value in that I think folks will like.

Is it the obligation of great art to be continually interesting? I think not.

Art for art's sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden. It is the best evidence we can have of our dignity.

It's not that everything needs to have substance, but when nothing does then you know we're living in a bankrupt society, an artistically bankrupt society, and that's not okay. I think there's room for forms of entertainment that are very light and frivolous and fun, but when those forms of entertainment, forms of "art" if you will, become presented as something more than that, and are believed to be something more than that, then we've got a lot of problems.