Edmund White Quotes

It's good to please the network, but you really just have to tell the stories you want to tell, and if you try to please other people, it ends up starting to water stuff down. Those decisions we have to make are hard, but we usually just err on the side of 'What would we want to see?'

I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff.

When I write a book... it's the same essential approach to music as with books. It has to be something I want to hear or read. Hopefully the audience comes along, since that's the only way you can write righteously. I have to ask, 'What do I want to hear?' not 'What do people want to hear?'

If you want to be a legitimate artist, it's more important what you say no to.

I think you owe it to yourself and you owe it to your status as an artist to be true to who you are.

I try to steer away from doing something that's just commercial instead of sticking to a good script.

You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else.

I play a certain style. I'm not willing to compromise that part of me.

I really believe in not compromising your art. I feel like I've never compromised my art.

It's really important to me that the music that I release is true to me and important to me.

People get sucked into being so show-bizy. I mean this is show biz, but I just can't do anything that's not in my DNA.

It's about being true to my artistry, which I've been doing. It's super important to do smart films.

It doesn't matter even if I am slow or fast as long as my films are honest and carries my integrity.

I wouldn't disrespect myself or my art with any imitations.

I think it's harder to make a classic now, not because of what people say, but because artists now are so concerned with what people say.

I'd rather make a show 100 people need to see, than a show that 1000 people want to see.

I make movies that I enjoy making and tell stories that I want to see, so it’s hard. You never reverse engineer those things and go, “What would appeal to this or that?” Even if I tried, I don’t know. I’m an all-American kid.

You have to be able to give the people what you want in your way. And that's how you, to me, become a person that they love and not just a fly-by night actor.

Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.

What is the truth is that every one of my films is a film that I'd love to go see, and I think that's very important because I always think it's a mistake to make movies for other people, or to make them for a demographic, or try to second guess an audience.

The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.

Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter. ... I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.

I make films, and I hope that people come to see them. If they don't, I pay a big price. But I can't make decisions where I would change my own standards or my own taste in order to court the public in some way.

The less attention I pay to what people want and the more attention I pay to just writing the book I want to write, the better I do.

I think the movies that don't try to please people are movies that you respect more in the end.