John Connolly Quotes

The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you.

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

You can have integrity with your art, but worrying about integrity doesn't pay the bills.

I'm in a very good place to make records. Needing to make money off music is very dangerous.

I don't want to be known as someone who is deliberately trying to do things that are not commercial! That is not a good reputation to have when you're trying to be a working actor.

As an artist, you want to make good stories and create good art; as a businessman, you want to make money and make sure the investors are happy. The two will always clash, unfortunately.

Any cartoon that can be liked by a committee is really not worth drawing; in fact, must not be drawn at all! Better to become a stockbroker.

There was a point I could have just churned out the spot and spin paintings for ever and laughed all the way to the bank.

The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.

I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job.

I'm in an area where I want to make music that I'm thrilled with, but, you know, I do have to worry about putting food on the table. I'm in that position where I cannot always be gauging what things might become. I have to look ahead, because I'm cautious.

The only way I'm comfortable with a new album is if I'm taking a new risk.

There's a tacit agreement between myself and the audience that I will entertain them when they buy their ticket, and I've been the one that has screwed that up. Once in while I indulge myself and try something else, and I keep my fingers crossed that it will come out good and there'll be enough people who will enjoy it, but that doesn't often happen.

The object isn't to be perfect. The goal isn't to hold back until you've created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.

In the arts, you simply cannot secure your bread and your freedom of action too. You cannot be a hostile critic of society and expect society to feed you regularly.

We've been fairly eclectic in our time, and we did branch out. Whenever we got a little bit too far out, people started to moan and groan a bit.

Hollywood seduces a person who's used to making theater, art, and having success on their own terms and then tries to squish them into a box and, eventually, throws the box out.

The music business is a crazy game, especially for somebody like me who is really a purist about the art. Trying to balance the pressures of commercialism, it's a tightrope. It's a fine line between sticking to your guns and insanity.

I've never consciously done 'safe' commercial projects; luckily, they have done well.

I don't want to be trending. Instead of pursuing ideas of being more radio-friendly and... commercial, I want to go harder at being more creative.

I will always face the conundrum that the subjects I'm attracted to aren't essentially commercial.

When I met Ram Charan, he told me not to worry about how much my films make. After 'Magadheera,' people began expecting big things from him. So he did films to keep up to that expectation. He advised me to not fall into that trap.

As soon as I left Georgia, my narrative became about taking risks and the fight for creative bedroom artists with no platform.

Every day, I'm trying to push the boundaries creatively, and sometimes it does push the boundary too far, and that's what I had to learn.

In the beginning, because of the Pavement thing, we were able to sell a certain amount of records. We were able to sell not such a great amount of records, but enough to live on. So there was no incentive to do what didn't come naturally.