Bret Easton Ellis Quotes

Literary success of any enduring kind is made by refusing to do what publishers want, by refusing to write what the public wants, by refusing to accept any popular standard, by refusing to write anything to order.

You really write the books you want to write. You can't take into consideration anything that anybody has said about you in the past, or what they'll say about you in the future.

I make the music that I want to make and make the show that I want to make. If you like it, you come. If you don't like it, you don't have to.

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 don't care what people do. I don't care how people remember my albums. I do them for my own reasons.

I never think about what others are doing. I do a film for myself, not others.

I just want to make my music, and I want it to stand on its own.

I don't care what people say. My music's, my music.

When it came to my art, I went my own way and did not follow the trends.

The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.

It's cool that people like what I do, but I don't work for the audience.

I know I'm not gonna please everybody when I make a record. I don't let that affect any of my decisions.

I can only say that I myself wrote always as I wished, without a tremendous desire to find the latest thing possible.

I don't perceive an audience at all when I write a book. It's pure self-indulgence.

I don't want people to just hand me music and be like, 'Here, you sound good on this. Sing it.' I want to be able to say, 'This is me.'

Other people have hang-ups about what's literary or genre or whatever, and that's sort of not my problem. You're supposed to write what you have to write, and you're supposed to keep moving.

I write what I want to write.

Honestly, I never felt like I wasn't an artist on my own. I always felt like the music I made was mine, whether it was part of a collaboration with people.

My advice to new artists is to not follow a trend, but to start one. By that, I mean to not be tempted to do what business people might suggest to you, to jump on the bandwagon, but to be strong.

I know that I'm a real writer because sometimes I write a story just because I want to; not because someone's told me to.

We only do what we think is good and what we're happy with. I do that in stand-up, I even do it with my children's books. I don't do market research, I don't have focus groups, I don't care. I don't care if it fails, honestly. I'd rather have something that's completely mine fail than something succeed that I'm not proud of.

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

Respect is one of the greatest expressions of love. If other people try to write your story, it means they don't respect you. They consider that you're not a good artist who can write your own story, even though you were born to write your own story.

I do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity known as ‘The Masses’. Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in. I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time.

Basically I just had to say, 'Screw everyone around me - from now on I'm just gonna play what I think is important to me and our music.' So I gave the big finger to all the current trends in technical wizardry, and just went off and did what I felt was best for the songs.