Steven Knight Quotes

It's not what you play but what you leave out that makes the difference.

Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.

The real pleasure in writing this, for me, was discovering how little you need.

For me, music is in the choice of what not to play as much as in what you've chosen to play.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

I would be content if I had nothing but a tape-recorder. I could still write songs and record them.

For me, the best rock is not what you play - it's what you're not playing.

I'm a believer that you shouldn't really talk about the drawing until you're done with the drawing.

I think a performer should do his work and then shut up.

I am neither a writer nor a theorist. For a person who creates things to utter too many words means to regulate himself - a frightening prospect.

Sometimes I think albums are so ambitious, they don't stand as bodies of work because you try to achieve so much, and sometimes we need to do less. Say less.

I like to have space between the notes. I like to use silence.

A good painting is a lot like a good joke: you need to know when to stop, too many 'punchlines and you will have gone too far.

You don't need to be flamboyant in your life to be flamboyant in your work.

A painter's got a canvas. The writer's got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence.

Writing is about a blank piece of paper and leaving out what’s not supposed to be there.

I'm a minimalist at heart. If a song doesn't need a solo, I'm not going to force one into it.

You could say that I have no inspiration, that I only need to paint.

I don't want to think too much about how I'm carving and what I'm carving - you are just carving away the excess clay and there's a piece underneath there. And it's kind of like getting out of the way. Maybe that's what the commonality is: It's getting out of the way so that the art can speak.

The world is beautiful but not sayable. That's why we need art.

I am a clothes maker, and that's all I am. I only want to talk about the making of the clothes. I don't feel the need to go out there and explain that.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

A lot of artists need structure.

You need to find a way to propel this creativity to the masses. People get brainwashed and they start to forget what's good.

You want to paint? First of all you must cut off your tongue because your decision takes away from you the right to express yourself with anything but your brush.