Robert Wyatt Quotes

Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared.

I've always had a certain fascination. It's basically paint what you know, and this is what I grew up with.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

I will give a proof to demonstrate with facts that there are no rules in painting and that oppression or servile obligation of making all study or follow the same path is a great impediment for the young who profess this very difficult art.

It can be frightening to turn your back on what others think is right. But I'm not the same as a lot of people - I'm quite artistic and quite eccentric sometimes. If you honour that, you fit into yourself better - and people accept you for what you are.

We can use techniques in modifying things, in controlling things, but the first impulse has to be something that you simply cannot make just out of technique, or else it becomes perfectly evident that it is nothing but technique that you're exercising.

I love fashion as an art; I love fashion as costume, as a character. I don't like dictates and the phoniness of appearance.

As long as you're true to you, you believe it and you make others believe it, then what you're doing is just art. If you give everybody a blank canvas and some paint, not everybody's picture is going to be exactly the same, but it's still art. I just do what I do.

I'd hate it if everyone in the world liked me, my music and what I wore. It'd make it boring, and I wouldn't have anything to work towards. It's not to everyone's taste, but I can only be me.

You don't have to be a certain thing to be cool. If you're white, you don't have to act black or whatever. Just be you and know who you are.

Artists are traditionally resistant to labels.

I'm just trying to have fun, and maybe the way I hold myself kind of freaks people out. I don't feel like an outsider, and I think my friends feel the same way I do. Now that we're playing to larger audiences, maybe we're weird to some people. But I'm trying to express what I am.

There are a lot of female artists my age around at the moment, but they're all American and blonde and blue-eyed and smiley. I'm totally the opposite of that. I want to show a bit more attitude and I have an opinion.

Sometimes, being different feels a lot like being alone. But with that being said, being true to that and being true to my standards and my way of doing things in my art and my music, everything that has made me feel very different... in the end, it has made me the happiest.

So many actors and musicians seem to be only interested in what's expected of them, and they join the dots accordingly. I don't fit into any narrow categories as an actor or a singer.

People often say, 'You don't go to fashion shows? What kind of photographer are you? What the hell is the wrong with you, man?' But that's what I need in order to be who I am.

You make up a character, there's always gonna be parts of you that, like it or not, shine through.

There are stories I wanted to tell, and they are not defined by what I look like.

My music is not like everybody gonna love it, it's really what I make of it.

I hope that the things that I sing about will be an inspiration for people to be original.

One must not imitate what one wants to create.

Probably the No. 1 most important thing in my music is not to sound like anyone else. It is hard in this day and age.

We're living at this funny time, where we're all urged to express ourselves as unique individuals, but on the other hand, we share a limited set of tools for doing that. It's easy to feel like nothing more than the sum of your consumer choices.

When I first came out, I was wearing full-on traditional Nigerian wear. I got told by a lot of people that I should just tone it down. I only stopped when I realized there's only so many prints you can wear.