Gene Luen Yang Quotes

I've never been one to sit back and go, 'I'd better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don't want to lose them.'

I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It's all authentic.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

I've never put out a song that I wasn't completely proud of and that I didn't love. In that sense, I've never felt like I sold out in any way.

Nobody is really going to bring my vision to life like the way that I am. Before I was doing my own music videos, it was not really my vision.

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

The rule I stand by as an artist is definitely be yourself, and don't make music just for other people: make it for you first.

I feel like if you let someone else create your vision, then it's not true to your band. No one can ever do as good as you want, or as good as you can yourself.

It's really liberating and fun to be writing stuff for myself, and really have the freedom to say what I want to say and not really have to think about what somebody else is going to say or have to edit myself to speak from someone else's vision.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

I can't constantly be trying to write the unwritten song, the song that the 15-year-old girl needs. I need to write the song that I need.

I've heard some people say that I'm selling out, but I'm not. If I hadn't done 'Black Radio', and just kept on doing just piano trio stuff, I wouldn't be honest with myself; I'd be doing it to please other people. That would be selling out.

I don't want to use my creative energy on somebody else's user interface.

I'm not an artist who has an agenda that's set by the work.

When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.

First and foremost, you have to make the movie for yourself. And that's not to say, to hell with everyone else, but what else have you got to go on but your own taste and judgment?

If you try to go beyond your interests just for the sake of pretensions or wealth, your art becomes less legitimate.

When you make a solo record, it's you. It's your name. It has to be the right songs for how you feel.

I think it's so important as an actor that you hang on to your own inner compass, because so many people want to guide you - 'This is what you should you be doing'. But I want to do different things.

I write the novels that are possible for me to write, not that ones I think will come across in a certain light.

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 think you write the film that you want to see, and you try and do it honestly, and you can't control people's responses, really.

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'm happy that I don't have to do covers anymore, because that's not what I do.

When I write a movie, I write it for me.