William Gaddis Quotes

I think there is an element of nihilism about, but I don't think most artists feel their work is meaningless.

This is my sixth series, and I'm burned out wondering if a show is going to change my life. Don't get me wrong, I love when people recognize my work. But I've given up worrying about whether it'll be seen by two people or two million or 22 million.

If it is the mark of the artist to love art before everything, to renounce everything for its sake, to think all the sweet human things of life well lost if only he may attain something, do some good, great work - then I was never an artist.

It is not in life, but in art that self-fulfillment is to be found.

There's this creative thing in me that wants to have my work used - like the author of a book who wants it read.

How can people think that artists seek a name? There is no such thing as an artist - only the world, lit or unlit, as the world allows.

I have all of these lives that I want the music to live, but at the end of the day, it's out there.

As an artist, I often wonder what my purpose is or why I do what I do.

I think each artist lives with purpose. A strong sense of purpose. We know who's come before us.

My art in my head just needs to come out for me - for my legacy and who I am.

In my low periods, I wondered what was the point of creating art. For whom? Are we animating God? Are we talking to ourselves? And what was the ultimate goal? To have one's work caged in art's great zoos - the Modern, the Met, the Louvre?

Most artists create foundations where they put their own work. Here I'm not putting my own work. I'm just creating the chambers.

I love making art... It's largely how I see myself. I'm an artist; therefore I have to make art.

An artist needs not so much an audience, as to feel a need to answer, a promise to respond... a good feeling about his art.

There remains this belief that the work itself can have an identity that can speak, whether it's through beauty, or through ugliness, or whatever quality you put into the work. The work doesn't have to be a transparent vehicle for you to say things about life today.

What's any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What's left of the man when the work's done but a shambles of apology.

Writing sustains me. But wouldn’t it be better to say it sustains this kind of life? Which doesn't mean life is any better when I don’t write. On the contrary, it is far worse, wholly unbearable, and inevitably ends in madness. This is, of course, only on the assumption that I am a writer even when I don’t write - which is indeed the case; and a non-writing writer is, in fact, a monster courting insanity.

The blank space can be humbling. But I've faced it my whole professional life. It's my job. It's also my calling. Bottom line: Filling this empty space constitutes my identity.

All artforms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living.

The highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. Creative effort spent for any other reason than the joy of being in that light filled space, love, god, whatever we want to call it, is lacking in integrity. . .

I think that's what all art is for - for people to express what it is to be human. That's the purpose of it.

I'm not a painter who's saying, "I want people to see my work when I die; it will be this and that." That's not satisfying to me.

My urge to write is an urge not to self-expressionism but to self-transcendence. My work is both bigger and smaller than I am.

What is my intention being a filmmaker? To make as much money as possible, or get as much attention as possible? It's not really either of those things. Now I can tell the stories that I want to tell.

My first book really did change my life. It allowed me to fully express myself. There was a sense that I was worth something as an artist.