Francisco Costa Quotes

You know, artists are influenced by other artists. We're all deeply influenced by what's around us; we don't make anything cold. Sometimes we think that we do. But within that, the most important part is that even though we're influenced, what are the levels of invention that we carry forth even as we've been influenced by something that's come before?

The poet is he who inspires, rather than he who is inspired.

I'm dependent on writing for a living, so really it's to my advantage to understand how the creative process works. One of the problems is, when you start to do that, in effect you're going to have to step off the edge of science and rationality.

Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love. You can't give a reason why.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art.

I almost literally wake up in the morning starting to think of my next idea. It's almost always driven by what's in the news. The hard part, really, is getting from knowing what I want to say to figuring out how to say it in an image. I'm still not entirely sure how to explain how that happens... Suddenly, something just works.

Their films would probably be better if they'd seen a few more films, which runs counter to this idiotic theory that you run the risk of being influenced if you see too much.

When I say art influences me, which it does, it's not at all in a literal form. You go and see exhibitions or collections or meet an artist. It's all a compilation. Every moment, at all times, all this information. Then all this information disappears, and it shows up later in the process.

It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.

It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.

It's intimidating any time to have a piece of art that someone else created, and that person says, 'Let's see what you created based on what I created.'

It's weird: I don't really know where I pull my inspiration from. I think it's N.E.R.D.

I don't particularly look at other artists when I'm working. But references do come into my work intuitively.

Artwork, films, TV - it's always informed my work, no matter what I'm working on.

As artists, we can't help but infuse our art with our own experience, so your experience becomes informative.

All creation requires a scientific brain.

It just sort of happened. I wrote like what I'd always read and what was in the movies... I'm sure popular music is supposed to be like this.

One musician listens to another musician, and you get inspired and then you do your thing, but it's yours.

If an artist may say nothing except what he has invented by his own sole efforts, it stands to reason he will be poor in ideas. If he could take what he wants wherever he could find it, as Euripides and Dante and Michelangelo and Shakespeare and Bach were free, his larder would always be full, and his cookery might be worth tasting.

The interesting thing about this is I don't know what my vision [ in Salome the play and Salomaybe] is yet about. I'm sensing something and I'm going along with it. It reminds me of a painting, the way Jackson Pollack painted - Jackson Pollack, the great, great artist.

You think you photograph a particular scene for the pleasure it gives. In fact it's the scene that wants to be photographed. You're merely an extra in the production.

[Personal life] doesn't affect my creative process. It just gives me more subjects to talk about. Basically whatever you put in your music is how you want people to view you.

The beauty of ideas is that they are like waves in the ocean and they connect with things that came before them, and I think it is very important to embrace things that interest you and influence you, and incorporate them into what you do, as all artists have always done. The ones that say they don’t, are lying. Or are afraid that their work won’t be seen as being original, somehow.

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

I've always disliked words like inspiration. Writing is probably like a scientist thinking about some scientific problem, or an engineer about an engineering problem.