Richard O'Brien Quotes

But as long as you're creating the art you want to create, if people start liking you, you shouldn't have to apologize. You want your stuff to be heard by as many people as possible.

Most of the time when you do a job, a play or a film, you're wondering, "Will there be an audience?"

You have to channel the interpretation and performance into 100 people. And with the audience, the critics.

I also paint, draw and I'm into film and photography as well, and the same thing applies to all of them. You're presenting this material to the general public and hoping that they're going to 'get' what you're doing. Some don't, some do.

I definitely feel sorry more people don't get to see my films. They aren't inaccessible, and if people got the chance to see them, I know they'd like them.

I have a suspicion that a lot of artists are trying to get a laugh but, unlike stand-ups, they don't get an immediate response from their audience; a laugh is a rare thing in a gallery.

We're on tour to kind of explain why we do what we do, how its done and how we put it together.

I do feel it's important to entertain people. I try to.

What I like about Broadway is that you are still entertaining. You're standing in front of an audience every night and the critics are not friends at all - and that's good for me as an entertainer because I want to grow. It also gives me the structure of remaining in one city so I can get creative in different ways.

If your work doesn't speak to people, it's beyond comprehension and risible, but if people engage with it, you become tarred with the brush of populism.

When you're playing, you're playing something for the world to hear.

I don't aim to make art in a vacuum - you want people to like it.

Contemporary art will never achieve the audience of football, pop music, or television, so I think we should stop comparing its possible area of influence to that of big mass-media events.

When classical singers or dancers look at cinema with derision, I have half a heart to tell them that they're wrong. They're losing a platform.

As an audience member, I like to watch what they're doing, and that's one of the reasons I love skating: because it's a performance, and I love to perform. That's my favorite aspect of skating.

I sometimes close my eyes during a show because I have drawn a picture of an audience enjoying the show more on the back of my eyelids.

Artists like to talk about what they do with people who've read their books, or seen their films.

Like every filmmaker, I make my films to reach the widest audience possible.

Only the work of art itself can raise the standard of taste.

Artists make their work to be seen by others. Well, really we do it to please ourselves, but whatever your art is, you want it to be seen by an audience. In theory, especially in the independent world, ironically, you do stand a chance of making a bit of money if the film gets distribution.

If a director says he doesn't care how many people see his films at all, I simply don't believe him. Otherwise why would he bother to make the film? The only explanation would be that it would be an act of masturbation. I think that every creator is looking for a receptor. He's looking for an audience. There are two parts of the equation: a creator and, necessarily, the receiver of the work. It's the same thing for a painter who wants his paintings to be seen.

Audiences have kept me alive.

I always like to be a step ahead of the audience by surprising them and the best way to do that is to not hold back.

I often envy a filmmaker or a playwright or an author where people are like, "Yeah, I sat down every night and read your book and it was beautiful." Or, "Yeah, I went to the movies and all I did was watch the movie because that's all you could do at the movies." Where with music, it's like, "Ugh, I love your music. I listen to it while I'm jogging thinking about how I hate my body." But it is also the privilege of being a musician is you can have your music in this documented form and play it live and that's, I think, what draws me to it the most.

When I am on the road and heading to my next venue, I think about my audience.